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THE MEDIEVAL EMPIEE. 
 
THE 
 
 MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT FISHER 
 
 FELLOW AND TUTOR OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YOEK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1898 . 
 
 All Hghte reserved 
 
A. V'2-\^\5■ 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRE33 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. 
 
 «.'^TIV\_ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE EXPANSION OF GERMANY IN THE NORTH-EAST. 
 
 Missionary wars of the Carolings, p. 1. Missionary activity an integral part 
 of the conception of the imperial office, p. 2. Distribution and character 
 of the Baltic Slaves, pp. 2-6. German progress in Slavonia under Henry 
 the Fowler and Otto I., pp. 6, 7. The Slavonic reaction, pp. 7-10. Con- 
 version of the Sorbs of the upper Elbe, pp. 10, 11. German progress 
 renewed under Lothair, pp. 11-13. Influx of Dutch and Flemish colonists, 
 p. 14. Introduction of the Cistercian Order, pp. 15, 16. Activity of the 
 nobles — Adolph of Schauenberg, pp. 16, 17. Henry the Lion, pp. 17-20. 
 Influence of the Empire over this later phase of German expansion, 
 pp. 20-24. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE EXPANSION OF GERMANY IN THE SOUTH-EAST. 
 
 German expansion here connected with the fortunes of a single family — 
 reasons of this, p. 25. Historiography of the Babenbergers, p. 26. Their 
 importance, p. 27. History of the Margraviate of Austria, pp. 27-34. 
 The privilege of 1156, pp. 35-37. History of the Duchy of Austria from 
 1156 to the extinction of the Babenberg line in 1246, pp. 37-46. Influence 
 of the Empire in the March and Duchy of Austria, pp. 46-54. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. , 
 
 THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. \1 
 
 Part played by the Church in securing the downfall of the Medieval Empire — 
 The contractual theory of monarchy broached during the War of Investi- 
 ture, pp. 55-59. Opposition of the Popes to the Hohenstauflfen, pp. 59-63. 
 Inter-dependence of Church and State during the Merovingian and Caro- 
 lingian period, pp. 63-66. Simony and imperial control over elections. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 pp. 66-71. The regalia and the right of spoils, pp. Ti-li. The acquisition 
 by the Emperors of Church fiefs, pp. 74-76. The participation of church- 
 men in the imperial council of princes, pp. 76-78, Extent to which the 
 Emperors were to blame for the secularity of the German Church, pp. 78- 
 81. General difficulty of maintaining a high standard of ecclesiastical 
 morals in the Middle Ages, pp. 81-83. Moral contrasts in the German 
 Church, pp. 83, 84. The German Church less cultured than the churches 
 of France and England, p. 85. Culture in the Rhine districts, pp. 85, 86. 
 In South Germany, pp. 87-89. General ignorance of German ecclesiastics, 
 pp. 89-91. Causes, 91-93. Attitude of the German Church towards the 
 Popes, p. 93 fF. Indifference towards the reforms of Benedict VIII., pp. 
 94-96. Attitude towards Leo IX., pp. 97-99. Opposition to Gregorian 
 reform, pp. 99-102. The German Church refuses to renounce the regalia 
 under Henry V., pp. 102, 103. Supports Frederick I. against the 
 papacy, pp. 103-111. Nevertheless there is no idea of denying papal 
 supremacy, pp. 111-113. The perplexities of the German mind in the 
 twelfth century illustrated from the writings of Gerhoh of Eeichersberg, 
 pp. 113-119. Policy of Innocent III. in Germany, p. 120. Attitude 
 of the German Church, pp. 121-130. The German Church supports 
 Frederick II. against the Popes, pp. 130-133. Defection of the ecclesi- 
 astical electors, pp. 133, 134. Territorial rather than spiritual interests 
 determine the result, pp. 134, 135. 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY. 
 
 Contrast between Latin and Teutonic peoples, pp. 136, 137. State of Italy in 
 the tenth century, pp. 137-139. Legislation in Italy, pp. 139-141. The 
 Liber Papiensis and the Lombard Edict, p. 141. The Roman law and 
 the growth of the territorial principle, pp. 142, 143. Paucity of legis- 
 lative acts of the Empire, p. 144. Their importance notwithstanding, 
 pp. 144-146. Feudal legislation of the Emperors, pp. 146-163. Its influ- 
 ence on Italian feudal law, pp. 163-166. Compacts between Frederick I. 
 and the Lombard towns, p. 167. Frederick II. as legislator, pp. 
 167-172. His contribution to imperial law in Italy, pp. 172-178. The 
 judicial reforms of 1240, pp. 178-181. The constitutions of Sicily, pp. 
 181-195. The penal law, pp. 186, 187. Procedure, 187-191. Recogni- 
 tion of social distinctions, pp. 191-194. Judicial organization and pre- 
 cautions against malversation, pp. 194, 195. Financial and administrative 
 system in Sicily, pp. 196-200. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 THE EMPERORS AND THE CITY OF ROME. 
 
 The Saxons in Rome, pp. 201-204. Henry III. and the papacy, pp. 204, 205. 
 The emancipation of the papacy and the beginning of the schism 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 pp. 205-209. Henry IV. and Hildebrand, pp. 209-212. Henry V. and 
 Lothair in Rome, pp. 212-215. Conflicting claims an\d parties, pp. 216, 
 217. Letter of the burghers to Conrad III., pp. 21'i'j 218. Relations 
 of Frederick I. to the city, pp. 219-224. Frederick l!. and the city, 
 pp. 224-228. Goethe and Otto of Freising in Rome, pp. 228> 229. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY. 
 
 Importance of the bishops as agents of administration, pp. 230-232. Imperial 
 commissioners in the tenth and eleventh centuries, p. 232. The Italian 
 chancery, p. 233. Influence of imperial commissions considered, pp. 
 234, 235. Changes in the political situation in Italy in the latter half 
 of the eleventh century, pp. 235, 236. German administration in Italy 
 under Barbarossa, p. 237. Attitude of the Italian populace towards the 
 foreign rule, pp. 243, 244. Reasons of Barbarossa's failure, pp. 244-247. 
 Settlement at Constance, pp. 247-249. The conquest of Northern Italy 
 by Frederick II., pp. 249-251. The Apulian officials, p. 251. The 
 members of the imperial family, p. 252. The downfall, pp. 252, 253. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE. 
 
 Contempt for the Germans as an inferior race mingled with respect for them 
 as a political necessity, pp. 254-256. Literary reciprocity between Germany 
 and Italy in the tenth and eleventh centuries, pp. 256, 257. German 
 letters scarcely affected by the political connection, p. 258. Recovery of 
 classical traditions in Italy, pp. 259, 260. Ignorance of German literature 
 in Italy, pp. 260, 261. Intellectual movements of the thirteenth century, 
 pp. 261, 263. Influence of Frederick II., pp. 263, 264. The Sicilian 
 school of poetry and the formation of a literary Italian language, pp. 
 265, 266. Influence of French, pp. 266-268 ; of Proven9al, pp. 267-270 ; 
 of Sicilian poetry, pp. 270-272. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CONCLUSION, 
 
THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE EXPANSION OF GERMANY IN THE NORTH-EAST. 
 
 How was tlie monarchy to exploit and to control this 
 dangerous military sentiment, this abundant human 
 material of war ? In the eighth century the problem 
 was more difficult, for the military energy of the 
 Germanic races was still fresh and exuberant, and the 
 internecine strife of the Merovingian sovereigns had 
 made every Frank a fighting man. Yet it was met for 
 a time by the first sovereigns of the Carolingian house 
 in a manner which was at any rate of transitory efiicacy. 
 They do not indeed organize professional armies like the 
 armies of the early Roman empire or of the Byzantines. 
 Their levies receive no state pay. There are no standing 
 legionary camps, there is no state commissariat, no war 
 budget, no code of military discipline. But just as 
 Napoleon utilized the amazing energy created in France 
 by the Revolution to spread French culture and dominion 
 through Europe, so the early monarchs of the Caroling 
 house utilize the amazing energy of the fresh Germanic 
 peoples to diffuse through Europe the Christianity of 
 the Latin Church. They employ all the races of the 
 
 VOL. II. A. 
 
2 : THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 Fi.-ankish. empire in a huge but connected series of 
 niiissionary wars.'^ 
 
 ISTow it was an integral part of the conception of the 
 imperial office that the emperor should extend the bound- 
 aries of the Church and do battle against the heathen. 
 In all the manuals ^^Titten during the break-up of the 
 Carolingian empire for the guidance of princes as well 
 as in the prayer offered by the Church, this duty is 
 enjoined with a mournful and a monotonous emphasis. 
 It the coronation service of Otto I. in the Cathedral 
 of Aix, the Archbishop of Treves goes to the altar, 
 takes thence a sword and a belt, and turning towards 
 the king says to him, " Receive this sword, by which 
 you may cast out all adversaries of Christ, all barbarians 
 and evil Christians, since fuU power of the whole 
 empire of the Franks has been given you by divine 
 authority to the most firm peace of all Christians." 
 And this missionary and military obligation is firmly 
 enjoined in all the orders for the coronation service 
 of a German king or a Roman emperor which have 
 come down to us. 
 
 "When the empire was transferred to the kings of the 
 Saxon house it went to a quarter of Europe which was 
 singularly fitted to be a basis for a series of eff'ective 
 crusades. The whole southern shore of the Danube, the 
 whole region north and east of the Elbe, the whole of 
 Denmark, Sweden, and Norway remained to be evan- 
 gelized. The Baltic Slaves were divided into three great 
 groups — the Obodrites, who occupied Holstein and Meck- 
 lenburg; the Wiltzi or Luticii, who formed a great block 
 
 ' Frederick I. in the Canonizatio Caroli Magni, 1166, says, "In fide quo- 
 que Christi dilatanda, et in conversione gentis barbaricae fortis athleta 
 fuit, sicut Saxonia et Fresonia Hispanis quoque testantur et Wandali 
 quos ad fidem Catholicam verbo convertit et gladio " [Harz., Cone, iii. 
 399, 400]. 
 
CHAP. VIII] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 3 
 
 of tribes facing the Middle Elbe : and lastly, tlie Sorbs, 
 in the upper valleys of the Elbe and the Saale.-^ But 
 the line of Elbe was not a sufficient barrier. Slaves 
 penetrated into the Altmark, as many place-names, 
 such as Wendish-Apenburg, testify to this day, and there 
 were Slavonian colonies in Swabia, in Hesse, in the 
 E,hine land.^ To reduce their Slavonic neighbours to 
 subjection, to colonize the Baltic lands with Germans 
 and with Flemings, who could till the heavy soils 
 neglected by the light and careless cultivation of the 
 Slave, to obtain possession of the Baltic ports and the 
 Russian and Swedish trade, to spread Church organiza- 
 tion through the vast plain which stretched from the 
 Elbe to the Vistula, was a mission which seemed 
 naturally imposed upon the German monarchy. The 
 task was not one of excessive difficulty. Cyril and 
 Methodius had by their sweetness and intelligence con- 
 verted the Moravians quietly, speedily, and without 
 bloodshed, and if ruder methods were to be employed 
 now, there was every prospect that these too would 
 succeed. There was, indeed, a time in the ninth cen- 
 tury when Europe was menaced with the consolidation 
 of a great Slavonic empire in the east stretching 
 from the Vistula to the Drave. But then came the 
 Hungarians driving their IMagyar wedge between the 
 Slaves of the south and the Czechs of Bohemia. From 
 that time onward the Baltic Slaves, placed between the 
 German hammer and the anvil of Poland and Bohemia, 
 seem incapable of forming any large or strong combina- 
 
 'Riedel, Die Mark Brandenhwrg im 1250, vol. iii., pp. 8-14 ; Meitzen, 
 Siedelung und Agrarwesen, ii., pp. 475-93 ; Schulze, Die Kolonisiermig 
 v/nd Oerinanisierung der Qehiete zwiscken Saale und Elbe. For a picture 
 of a Slavonic round village, Meitzen, ii., p. 485. 
 
 2 For the various subdivisions of these tribes, cf. Hauck, Oeschichte der 
 deutschen Kirche, vol. iii., pp. 74, 7. 
 
4 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 tions. Though they were numerous, according to Adam 
 of Bremen ten times more numerous than the Germans, 
 inured to all dangers, and not wholly uncivilized, for 
 they work hemp and linen, and possess towns, such 
 as the Slavo-Greek commercial city of WoUin on the 
 Oder, where freedom of access was accorded to German 
 traders, yet they show no political capacity or powers of 
 military organization. The only ties which bound these 
 peoples together seem to have been the oracular shrine 
 of Svantovit, in the island of Rtigen, the Slavonic 
 Delphi to which all paid annual sacrifices, and the 
 temple of Radigost at Rethra, with its mailed and 
 helmeted gods.^ But the settlements were sparse and 
 isolated, the lands of the village communities divided 
 up every three generations, their civilization stationary. 
 " In the midst of the greatest natural wealth, the men 
 of this land," says a German observer in the middle of 
 the twelfth century, " seem plunged in a general coarse- 
 ness and rusticity. The cities and castles are destitute 
 of walls and turrets, and are fortified alone by a wooden 
 palisade and a ditch. The churches and houses of the 
 nobles are lowly and mean. The people are given over 
 to hunting, fishing, and the tending of flocks, for in this 
 consists all their wealth, and agriculture is rare among 
 them. There is little of opulence or beauty in their 
 style of living or clothes, and our middle class is 
 glorious when compared with their nobility."' In the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries the Baltic Slaves were, 
 in fact, very much in the same condition as were the 
 Croatians and the Slovenes, when they were described 
 
 1 Tliietmar, vi. 23, 24 ; Adam. Brem. ii. 18, 19 ; Helmold, i. 6, 36, 52. 
 It is probable that the Germans stimulated the formation of a Slavonic 
 priesthood in these parts, for elsewhere we do not hear of heathen 
 priests. 
 
 2 Herhardi Dialogus, iii. 30 ; Jafie, Bibliotheca, v., p. 822. 
 
CHAP, viii] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 5 
 
 by Procopius and the Emperor Maurice towards the 
 close of the sixth century. Excellent divers and 
 swimmers, good bee-keepers, skilled archers and javelin- 
 men, who could harass the march of an incoming force, 
 and take advantage of natural cover of every descrip- 
 tion, but unapt for the invasion of a foreign territory ; 
 living in the rude democracy of their family communi- 
 ties, crowded together in wretched huts of wattle, 
 hideous, dirty, and evil-smelling, but musical, sensitive, 
 and hospitable, gentle and humane in their treatment 
 of the decrepit and of prisoners of war ; using small 
 pieces of cloth as their internal currency, but for all 
 that carrying on an extensive trade in wax and furs 
 and honey ; enduring of hard labour and long fasts, 
 assuaging the paroxysms of religious terror by human 
 or animal sacrifice, yet with no strong priesthood or 
 robust religious creed, and with no central political 
 authority whom they could obey or revere ; at critical 
 moments they fight with one another, when they 
 should have been banded together to resist the 
 Germans.^ If the Christian missionaries had been 
 spiritual or persuasive, or if the emperors had 
 been strong, these tribes might have been rapidly 
 absorbed or vanquished. In the latter alternative the 
 emperors might have created in the northern plain of 
 Germany the dominion which it afterwards fell to the 
 margraves of Brandenburg and the dukes of Prussia to 
 create, a dominion which was capable of strong centra- 
 
 ' Procopius, De Bella Gothico, iii. c. 14 ; Mauricius, Ars Militaris, ix. 3, 
 xi. c. 5 ; Ibrahim-ibu-Jakub [Jacob, Bin arahisclier Berichterstatter azis 
 dem 10 Jahrhundert, and Arabischen Oeograpken, ii.] ; Jaffe, Bibliotheca, 
 iii. 170 ; Widukind, ii. 20 ; Adam. Brem., ii. 19, iii. 21, iv. 18 ; Helmoldi, 
 Ghron. Slav. i. 82, 83, and passim ; Thietmar, vi. 17, 18, 24, 25 ; Krek, 
 Einleitung in die Slavische Literaturgeschichte, pp. 246-473 ; Hauck, Kir- 
 chengeschichte Deutschla-nds, iii. pp. 69-86 ; Schulze, Die Eolnnisierung, 
 pp. 19-43, 86-116. 
 
6 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 lization, because it was the military rule of a foreign 
 and energetic people, unprotected by natural frontiers, 
 and establisbed in a conquered Slavonic land. At the 
 outset it seemed likely that this would be the issue. 
 Henry the Fowler made his reputation in the Slavonic 
 wars. He conquered Brandenburg, the capital of the 
 Hevellians, beat the Danes and Trends, and cleared 
 the whole line of the Elbe. Otto I., aided by 
 two vigorous subordinates, Hermann Billing and Mar- 
 grave Gero, continued this work, three times invading 
 the Slavonic territory — in 936, 939, and 955 — and 
 forcincr all the tribes from the Elbe to the Oder 
 to acknowledge his suzerainty. Even the Duke of 
 Poland bowed down before him. In Nordalbingia the 
 effects of the Ottonian peace made a deep impression. 
 The provinces of Wagria and Schlesvig began to be 
 covered mth monasteries, villages, and towns, and 
 the Holsatian archaeologist of the twelfth century 
 found among his native forests, ia the lines of furrows, 
 the embankments of streams, and the outlines of forti- 
 fied places, signs of the activity of the Sason colonists 
 two centuries earlier.^ The See of Magdeburg was 
 raised to archiepiscopal rank, in order that the bound- 
 aries of the Christian faith might be extended and the 
 untamed Slavonic races between the Elbe and the 
 Saale subdued to the Christian yoke.^ Six new bishop- 
 rics were founded — Oldenburg, Havelburg, Brandenburg, 
 ^Merseburg, Zeitz and i\Ieissen — to co-operate towards 
 the same end. The first archbishop of Magdeburcf is 
 nominated to be " Archbishop and Metropolitan of the 
 whole race of the Slaves beyond the Elbe which has 
 either been already converted or which remains to be 
 converted to God."^ A Papal Bull enjoins upon him to 
 
 1 Helmold, i. 13. -Leibnitz, iii. i34. ^ Diplmn. Otto., 366 ; Stumpf, 460 
 
CHAP, vill] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 7 
 
 carve out the sees of his bishops in the trans-Elbine 
 lands in conjunction with Otto, according as expediency 
 may direct, and gives to him the right of consecrating 
 the bishops of this region."^ The archbishop is in fact 
 to be the great ecclesiastical margrave over the six 
 military marches which Otto set up on the north and 
 north-east after Gero's death in 965. 
 
 The death of the valiant Margrave Gero marks an 
 epoch in the history of these regions. Until Albert 
 the Bear in 1134 received the Nordmark from the 
 Emperor Lothair, there was not a stoppage of progress, 
 there was actual retrogression. The margraves of the 
 north-east seemed to have been for a hundred and 
 seventy-nine years small, avaricious, and quarrelsome 
 men. The emperors were chiefly occupied in Italy, 
 and then with the Saxon Eevolt and the War of the 
 Investitures. The Saxon dukes were jealous of the great 
 churchmen, and there was neither unity nor direction in 
 attack or defence. The effects of the Italian wars were 
 immediately felt.^ After the defeat of Otto II. in 
 South Italy in 983, there was a general explosion of 
 revolt along the Saxon border. The Danes burst in 
 from the north, destroyed Stade, one of the most con- 
 venient Saxon ports on the Lower Elbe, and burnt 
 Oldenburg as Duke Bernhard of Saxony was wending 
 his way to Verona. The Wiltzes, exasperated by the 
 tyrannical government of Count Dietrich of the Nord- 
 mark, cast off Christianity, slaughter the garrison, and 
 destroy the churches and towns of Havelburg and 
 
 1 Cod. Dipl. Sax., i. 1, 248 ; Jaffe, 3731 ; Hauck, Kirchengeschichte, 
 pp. 109-132. 
 
 2 Helmold, i. 15, " Eo quod . . . medius quoque neonon et tertius Otto 
 bellis Italicis essent occupati, et ob banc causam Sclavi teruporis oppor- 
 timitate freti non solum divinis legibus, sed et imperatoriis jussis 
 cepissent paulatim obniti." 
 
8 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 Brandenburg. A Bohemian force captures and plunders 
 the Church of Zeitz, and levels the Monastery of St. 
 Laurence in Kalbe to the ground. The Abodrites burn 
 and devastate Hamburg, and German Christianity is 
 rolled back again to the Elbe frontier, and almost half 
 the province of the Archbishop of Magdeburg relapses 
 into heathendom. 
 
 Henceforward the Saxons stand on the defensive. 
 The Slaves and the Northmen plunder and ravage the 
 land. The whole line of the Elbe with all the boats is 
 in the hands of the heathen, whose inroads pierce almost 
 to Hildesheim, so that Bishop Bern ward has to build a 
 fortress at the confluence of the Ocker and the AUer to 
 repel the invader. Five campaigns, accompanied or 
 directed by Otto HI., are fruitless of any permanent 
 result, and the policy of an alliance with Mesco of 
 Poland leads to nothing but the recapture of Branden- 
 burg. Henry II., Otto's successor, was a man of re- 
 source, full of energy, penetrated by the ecclesiastical 
 ideas of his time, alive to the importance of Christianiz- 
 ing the Slave. He founds the Bishopric of Bamberg 
 with a view to converting the Slaves of the Main. 
 He marches an army now as far as Posen, now as far 
 as Glogau. But the problem in his day is somewhat 
 changed, for the real danger now was not so much the 
 Wiltzes or the Abodrites as Poland. Here Bolislav 
 Chabri had built up one of those ephemeral monarchies, 
 which are so easily constructed and so easily dissolved 
 in a great plain peopled by barbarians. His conquests 
 stretched from the golden gates of Kiev to the waters 
 of the Saale ; his horsemen overran the March of 
 ^leissen. The Slaves of the Middle Elbe trembled 
 before him. The situation was critical, and Henry even 
 turned to his old enemies the Wiltzes, and played them 
 
CHAP, viii] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 9 
 
 against the Polish peril. He also detached Bohemia 
 from Bolislav, and in 1013 obtained from the Polish 
 king the recognition of German suzerainty. But the 
 German border was not advanced eastward, and in 
 Nordalbingia every trace of Christianity was extirpated. 
 The cruelty and avarice of the German nobles, who 
 wrung the utmost farthing from the miserable Slaves ; 
 the ill-judged imposition of tithe upon the half-con- 
 verted heathen by Otto I. ; an insulting word addressed 
 by Margrave Dietrich to the Prince of the Winules, 
 who asked the niece of Duke Bernhard of Saxony in 
 marriage, and was told that the relation of a Saxon 
 could not be wedded to a dog ; the rebellion of Duke 
 Bernhard himself against Henry, seem to have been the 
 causes or occasions of the catastrophe. 
 
 The Franconian emperors were assailed by new 
 dangers — the rise of the Lombard republics, the settle- 
 ment of the Normans in southern Italy, the Saxon 
 revolt, the ecclesiastical opposition. Their policy in 
 these quarters was not calculated to secure any perman- 
 ent advance. The main concern of Conrad II. and of 
 Henry III. seems to have been to extract the recogni- 
 tion of imperial suzerainty from Poland, Bohemia, and 
 Hungary, and to maintain a balance of power between 
 the three eastern rulers. The main concern of Henry 
 IV. was to obtain Slavonic aid ao-ainst the revolting; 
 Saxons. The main concern of Henry V. was to recover 
 the Saxon base of the earlier monarchy. The first 
 policy was showy but futile, the second was treacherous, 
 the third resulted in complete failure. The story of the 
 Slavonic border throughout this period is one dreary 
 tale of burning and hanging and slaying punctuated by 
 great massacres, such as the annihilation of a German 
 army at the confluence of the Havel and the Elbe in 
 
lo THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 1056, and the Slavonian disaster, or (Jlades Slavonica, 
 ten years later, which ruined the whole pro'\'ince of 
 Hamburg, and forced six hundred Holsatian families to 
 cross the Elbe and emigrate to the Harz Mountains. 
 
 Yet far eastwards by the upper waters of the Elbe, in 
 the bishoprics of Zeitz and of Meissen, the Sorbs had 
 quietly accepted Christianity. If the same result was 
 not achieved among the Abodrites and the Wiltzes, the 
 cause is not to be found in the greater religious tenacity 
 of these tribes. If the e^'idence of Thietmar and other 
 contemporary German observers can be trusted, the 
 Slave had lost confidence in his o'mi deities, and 
 perhaps, with the single exception of the inhabitants 
 of Rligen, there was no single tribe which, if Christi- 
 anity had been intelligently and mercifully offered it, 
 would not have gladly burnt its wooden images and 
 groves. The condition of the SlaA'onic population 
 indeed seems to have been so miserable that they 
 would have been willing to exchange it for even the 
 most modest share of well-being. The settlements were 
 sparse and isolated, the poorer people enslaved by a 
 brutal and contemptuous nobility, and though the 
 absence of a Slavonic monarchy made wholesale con- 
 version impossible, the task which lay before the 
 German missionaries was by no means desperate. But 
 there was a tradition of war between Slaves and 
 Germans (which certainly must have been intensified 
 by the brutalities of the first two Saxon kings), such 
 as to exclude every vestige of honour or mansue- 
 tude. " "With the innate pride of Teutons," as Cosmas 
 of Prague tells us, " the Germans always despised 
 the Slaves and their tongue." ^ The Bishops of 
 Hamburg and Bremen preferred the distant liut more 
 
 'Coamas, Chron. i. 40, SS. ix., p. 62. 
 
CHAP, vill] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY ii 
 
 honourable prospect of founding a patriarchate over 
 the Scandinavian countries of the north to the 
 humbler but more feasible task which lay at their doors, 
 and although here and there a missionary acquired the 
 Slavonic tongue, a long series of inhuman outrages 
 impeded the work of conversion. If there be any truth 
 in Frederick Nietzche's view that most of the distin- 
 guished men in Germany have had Slavonic blood in 
 their veins, the country has paid heavily for the 
 barbarity of the Middle Ages, which stamped out of 
 existence an artistic and impressionable people in Hol- 
 stein, Brandenburg, and East Prussia. 
 
 It was left to the Saxon emperor Lothair, " the 
 imitator and heir of the first Otto,"^ once more to 
 advance the cause of Christian civilization in these 
 regions. No emperor since the death of Henry II. had 
 been so clearly marked out to achieve success in this 
 direction.^ He had been a powerful Saxon duke before 
 he became king, and as Duke of Saxony he had dis- 
 tinguished himself on more than one occasion in the 
 AVendish wars. A man of simple piety, he owed his 
 elevation to the throne to Church influence, and was 
 fortunate enough to preserve the friendship of the 
 German Church and of the Papacy throughout his reign. 
 The conquests of Bolislav III. of Poland about 1125 
 had broken up a confederacy of the Wiltzes, and the 
 conversion of Pomerania was due to the assistance of the 
 Polish duke. The Concordat of Worms had brought a 
 welcome though temporary solution of the ecclesiastical 
 dispute, and at the same time events had taken a 
 
 ^Ann. Fallid., 1125, SS. xvi. 77. 
 
 2 Helmold, i. 41, " Cepitque in diebus Lotharii Caesaris oriri nova lux 
 non tam in Saxonie finibus quam in universo regno, tranquillitas tem- 
 porum, habimdantia rerum, pax inter regnum et sacerdotium." 
 
12 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 favourable turn in Nordalbingia. In 1093 Henry, the 
 son of Gottshalk, eflFected an entry into the country, 
 treacherously murdered its heathen ruler, married his 
 w-idow, and obtained possession of his principality. The 
 new prince set to work to continue his father's policy. 
 He made alliances with the Saxons, and in conjunction 
 with Duke ^Magnus won a victory over the northern and 
 eastern Slaves ; reduced them to slavery ; rooted out 
 robbers from the land ; encouraged agricultural labour ; 
 rebuilt houses and churches; gave the Saxon missionary 
 Vicelin a church in Liibeck and attracted a large colony 
 of merchants to the town ; destroyed the power of the 
 most warlike of Slavonic races, the Eani of Etigen ; 
 exacted tribute from all the peoples subject to them 
 right up to the border of Poland ; did, in fact, more for 
 the civilization of those parts than anyone had done 
 since the time of Otto I. In all this work he is 
 vigorously aided by Christian missionaries, by Otto of 
 Bamberg, Xorbert of Magdeburg, and A'iceHn. The 
 chroniclers are struck with the revival of missionary 
 interest.^ It seemed as if the good days of Otto I. had 
 returned. Xorbert of ]\Iagdeburg, who is the close 
 friend and constant companion of the emperor, resumes 
 the Ijuildings which had been left unfinished since 
 Otto's death.'- The heathen fortress of Eethra is de- 
 stroyed; a timely campaign in 1131 reduces Magnus 
 of Denmark to submission, and the AYendish princes of 
 Xordalbingia, Xicklot, and Pribislaw. In 1134 the 
 emperor meets A'icelin, the apostle of the Wends, at 
 Luneburg, and, in compliance with his request, builds 
 and garrisons the fortress of Siegeberg, together with 
 
 ^Helmold, i., 54, "Factumque est misericordia Dei et virtute Lotharii 
 Caesaris seminarium novellae plantationis in Sclavia." 
 - Gesta Arch. Magd., SS. xiv. 414. 
 
CHAP, vill] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 15 
 
 a monastery hard by, in order to guarantee the security 
 of the mission. In the same year he gives the Nord- 
 mark to Albert the Bear. In 1137 he makes peace 
 with Bolislav III. of Poland, who does homage for 
 Pomerania and Eugen, and who had for many years 
 paved the way for German expansion in the east by his 
 victories over the Slaves of the Middle Elbe. Yet we 
 must not exaggerate the effects of the imperial authority 
 in Nordalbingia. On the death of the Abodrite Henry, 
 Lothair handed over his kingdom to a Danish fugitive, 
 Cnut, who not only aroused the jealousy of the Saxon 
 court, but revived all those oppressions which had 
 made alien rule so hateful among the Slaves. Another 
 effect of this unfortunate step was to involve the whole 
 province of Nordalbingia in the fratricidal broils which 
 form for so long a period the most important strand in 
 Danish history. And it is worth noting that the final 
 conquest of this region was achieved not by the emperor 
 but by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. 
 
 After the death of Lothair the emperors do little or 
 nothing in these Wendish parts. The work of conquest 
 and colonization falls from the hands of the Hohen- 
 stauffen into the hands of the clergy and nobility. 
 While Conrad III. is on crusade and Frederick Bar- 
 barossa fights in Lombardy, the Saxon nobles and 
 clerks slowly but surely penetrate into the vast in- 
 heritance, which the emperors have tasted only to 
 abandon. For a time progress is slow. It is delayed 
 partly by lack of religious zeal, partly by the absorption 
 of the leading nobles in German and in imperial 
 politics. The Wendish crusade of 1147 results in three 
 ineffectual sieges, a few baptisms, and an inglorious 
 retirement. Albert the Bear, the founder of the March 
 of Brandenburg, is too busy with his claims upon the 
 
14 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 Saxon duchy to do much against the Wends. The 
 smaller Saxon nobles anxiously watch the career of 
 Henry the Lion, conspire against him, and finally, in 
 1180, effect his exile and the partition of his duchy. 
 Still the foundations of a more permanent settlement of 
 the North are laid in the twelfth century. In 1106 six 
 Hollanders from the diocese of Utrecht came to Arch- 
 bishop Frederick of Bremen, and petitioned for leave to 
 settle upon the unoccupied marsh on the north of the 
 city. The compact between the archbishop and the new 
 settlers marks an epoch in the agrarian history of North 
 Germany. The Hollanders were to retain their old 
 laws and customs, and to settle their own disputes, 
 upon payment of two marks a year from every hun- 
 dred manses. They paid a mark yearly as rent from 
 each manse, and corn, sheep, pigs, goats, geese, and 
 honey were tithed.^ The terms were favourable, 
 and were substantially repeated in many subsequent 
 contracts by which Hollanders and Flemings, Frisians 
 and Brabanters were settled upon waste places. The 
 immigration of these new settlers, accustomed to cope 
 with flood and marsh, and practised in the ploughing 
 of heavy soils, made the effective colonization of the 
 East a possibility. The Slaves -nith their light ploughs 
 had merely scratched the most worthless soils, but the 
 strong ploughshare of the Hollander first revealed the 
 agricultural possibilities of the heavy soils in the great 
 North-German plain. ^ 
 
 'The contract is reprinted from the Bremiiches Urlcunbenhuchui^leitzen, 
 Sieddung und Agranoesem,, ii., pp. 344, 5. For a map of a Dutch settle- 
 ment, cf. the plan of Siebenhofen near Stade in Meitzen, i. 48. Meitzen's 
 beautiful series of maps are the best commentaries upon the expansion 
 of Germany. 
 
 - For the work of the Flemings, Schulze, Die Kolcaisierung, pp. 129, 130, 
 •where full bibliographical indications are given. A charming Flemish 
 
CHAP, viii] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 15 
 
 If the influx of the Flemish and Hollander colonists 
 is one cause of the German acquisitions in the twelfth 
 century, the introduction of the Cistercian Order is 
 another.^ Marsh and forest were the elements with 
 which these Cistercian houses chose to surround them- 
 selves, and in which they preferred to work. The 
 Christianization of Mecklenburg is efi"ected by a Cis- 
 tercian monastery founded about 1170 in the Wendish 
 village of Doberan. In Pomerania the Danish monas- 
 tery of Eldina is founded in 1199 on the Hilda, attracts 
 colonists from Westphalia and the Rhine, the Nether- 
 lands and Friesland, and with their aid reclaims six 
 square miles of waste. The monastery of Leubus, north- 
 west of Breslau, founded in 1175, and protected by 
 Duke Bolislav I. and his son Henry the Bearded, 
 germanizes Silesia. A brother of the Order, writing at 
 the beginning of the fourteenth century, describes in 
 detestable verse the condition of the country on the first 
 arrival of the Cistercians.^ A land of forest, inhabited 
 by poor and lazy Poles, who, with a wooden plough 
 
 emigrant song is printed by Willems, Oude Vlamiscke Liederen, p. 25. 
 The first stanza runs : 
 
 " Naer Oostland willen wy riden, 
 Naer Oostland willen wy mSe, 
 Al over die groeue heiden 
 Daer isser een betere stee." 
 
 1 For the work of the Cistercians, cf. Michael, Geschichte des deutschen 
 Volkes, pp. 91-120, where full references are given. 
 
 ^Monumenta Luhensia, ed. Wattenbach, p. 15 ; cf. Michael, p, 100. 
 " Nam sine cultore tellus jacuit nemorosa, 
 Et genus Polonie pauper fuit, haut operosa, 
 Sulcans in sabulo lignis uncis sine ferro 
 Et vaccis bobus nisi scivit arare duobus. 
 Civitas aut opidum per terram non fuit ullum 
 Sed prope castra fora campestria, broca, capella, 
 Non sal, non ferrum, numismata nonque metallum 
 Non indumenta bona sed neque calciamenta 
 Plebs habuit ulla, pascebat sola jumenta." 
 
1 6 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 drawn by two cows or oxen, lightly stir the sand. 
 Nowhere a town ; markets held in the open air by a 
 castle or a chapel. The inhabitants without salt, or 
 iron, or coins, or metal-work, or shoes ; pitiably clothed. 
 The House of Leubus attracts colonists from Flanders 
 and Eastphalia, from Hesse and Thuringia, settles them 
 down on the land under favourable terms, and in thirty- 
 five years [1204-39] cultivates at least a hundred and 
 sixtv thousand acres, and either founds or converts into 
 
 ■J ' 
 
 German colonies some sixty-five villages. 
 
 The nobles too take an active part in this work of 
 exploitation. Watch the career of Adolph of Schauen- 
 berg. Count of Holstein, who sends to Flanders, Holland, 
 Westphalia and Frisia in search of poor colonists to till 
 the rich but desolate soil of his war-worn province, who 
 builds Llibeck, induces the Abodrite nobles to do him 
 homage and to cede estates to his colonists. He has 
 struck out the way, which the Slavonic Prince Henry 
 had been the first to demonstrate, of harmonizing the 
 two races in the work of colonizing a half empty land. 
 
 Unfortunately the crusade of 1147 — useless, im- 
 politic, and cruel — spoils his plans. Niclot, King of 
 the Abodrites, who was prepared to be Adolph's " eye 
 and ear in the land of the Slaves," rallied his race in 
 defence of their liberties and existence. On June 26, 
 1147, a Slavonic fleet surprised Llibeck, slew more than 
 three hundred of its inhabitants, and discharged a band 
 of raiders into the country, who burnt down all the 
 Westphalian and foreign colonies beyond the Trave. 
 It was left to Adolph to attempt to repair the ravages 
 which the inconsiderate and unsuccessful crusade had 
 been the means of causing, to patch up again the alliance 
 with Niclot and the eastern Slaves, to redeem captives, 
 to repel the Danes, to tame the rude Holsatians, who, like 
 
CHAP, viii] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 17 
 
 the Greeks of old, considered thieving a form of virtue. 
 By 1150 the damage was repaired, the alliance with 
 Niclot renewed. The navy of Lubeck rapidly increased. 
 A Saxon colony was planted at Oldenburg. The castle of 
 Plon was rebuilt, and a town and market attached to it. 
 By degrees, says Helmold, the Slaves departed from the 
 land. In 1164 this vigorous Saxon died in battle, 
 coping with the last Slavonic rising in the land of the 
 Abodrites. " When his good journey was done he 
 obtained the palm, and bearing the standard in the 
 camp of the Lord, he stood for the defence of his 
 country and loyal adherence to the princes. Instigated 
 by his example, his good and illustrious comrades, 
 Guncelin, Count of Schwerin, and Bernhard, Count of 
 Eatzeburg, did also good work fighting the battles of 
 the Lord, that the worship of the house of God might 
 be raised up in an incredulous and idolatrous race."^ 
 
 A still greater figure is Henry the Lion, Duke of 
 Saxony from 1139 to 1195.^ He had moved in the 
 large world of imperial politics, knew the great trading 
 towns of South Germany and Italy, introduced some of 
 the Italian machinery of war into his northern duchy. 
 He was the first of the Saxon dukes who realized the 
 immense revenue which might be gained from the en- 
 couragement of commerce, and he had the strategical 
 eye of the commercial pioneer. From the beginning he 
 saw the importance of Lubeck, and he never rested till 
 he had wrung the island and the port from Adolph of 
 Holstein. Then at once he sent envoys to Denmark, 
 Sweden, Norway and Eussia, offering freedom of traffic 
 with the city, formed a mint, established an octroi, 
 and guaranteed the town most ample privileges. The 
 brilliant fortunes of Lubeck, with its colonies in Livonia 
 
 1 Helmold, ii. 5. 2 cf Helmold and Arnold of Lubeck. 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
1 8 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 and Curland, its control of the Baltic trade, date from 
 its second creation in 1158 by Henry the Lion, and there 
 is another respect, too, in which Henry the Lion's tenure 
 of the Saxon duchy marks an epoch. A fairly large 
 though steadily diminishing Slavonic population under 
 its own chieftain Niclot still remained among the German 
 Holsatians and Dithmarschers in Nordalbingia. Owing 
 to the policy of Count Adolph and the moderation and 
 wisdom of Niclot these Slaves had ceased to present 
 any formidable dangers. They were on their way to 
 become Christianized ; the worst customs of the race, 
 such as punishment by crucifixion, were in process of 
 disappearing ; and there seems little doubt that the two 
 races, if left to themselves, would have quietly fused 
 together. But Henry the Lion was not a man to wait 
 upon a process. In 1160 he devastated Nordalbingia 
 with fire and sword, and divided the land of the Abodrites 
 among his knights. The country was soon studded 
 with German garrisons, and the population further 
 recruited with Flemish settlers. The duke created the 
 county of Eatzeburg, and obtained from the Archbishop 
 of Bremen the investiture of the county of Stade. The 
 three sees of Oldenburg, Eatzeburg and JMecklenburg 
 were provided with bishops who received their investi- 
 ture from the duke, and the efliciency of the churches 
 was guaranteed by the payment of tithes — a burden 
 which was borne alike by the surviving Slaves and the 
 incoming Germans. The conquest then of Nordalbingia 
 was definitely achieved by Henry the Lion, and it was 
 not without significance that the stone lion before the 
 palace at Brunswick was turned with its face towards the 
 east. The northern danger appeared to be overpast. 
 It was the east which beckoned to the German warrior 
 and colonist. 
 
CHAP, viii] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 19 
 
 East of Ratzeburg and north of the Elbe Henry 
 founded the county of Swerin, deriving the name of the 
 new area from the old capital of the Abodrite princes. 
 Diplomacy too came to the aid of his arms. He gave 
 his daughter Matilda in marriage to Henry Borwin, the 
 Slavonic prince of Mecklenburg, and thus founded the 
 half-German, half-Slave dynasty which rules in Mecklen- 
 burg to this day. The Slavonic dukes of Pomerania, 
 who had conquered the eastern portions of the present 
 March of Brandenburg, were forced to acknowledge his 
 suzerainty. He joined hands with Waldemar of Den- 
 mark to sweep the Slavonic pirate from the Baltic, and 
 he made the islands of the northern sea for the first time 
 habitable. His name was a terror to the Slaves from 
 the mouths of the Elbe to the furthest corner of Pomer- 
 ania, and he was able to use them as the pawn upon a 
 chess-board, moving them now against Saxon nobles, 
 now against the Rugians, now against the pirates of 
 Denmark. When Waldemar the Dane fitted out an 
 expedition to the island of Riigen to destroy that 
 famous seat of piracy and religion, Henry ordered his 
 Slavonic subjects to help the Dane. The image of the 
 oracular god of the Slavonic nations was trailed on the 
 ground in the sight of its worshippers; the fane was 
 plundered and destroyed, and twelve Christian churches 
 were erected in the holy island, which was shared 
 between Waldemar and Henry. So did the Baltic 
 Slaves lose their religious centre. The last strong- 
 hold of the old beliefs was utterly broken. The whole 
 region from Egdor to Swerin was made a Saxon colony. 
 
 Such a figure as Henry's had not been seen in North 
 Germany since Otto the Great. He was rapacious, 
 jealous, and domineering, but he had the qualities of a 
 master of men. A word from him spoken to the subject 
 
20 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 Slavonic princes is sufficient to loose such a storm of 
 pirates upon Denmark as shall force the Danish king to 
 flo his bidding. Another word will seal up the river 
 mouths, and not a Slavonic craft will infest the sea. 
 He marries the daughter of Henry H. of England ; his 
 own daughter is asked in marriage by the king of the 
 Danes ; he receives an embassy from Byzantium at his 
 court at Brunswick. His private wealth was enormous, 
 and excited a jealousy which proved fatal to him. 
 Besides the properties which came to him from his 
 ancestors, the Billungs, Nordheimers, Lothair, and 
 Richinza, he absorbed the property and the commerce of 
 his nobility with restless and imperious greed. Learn- 
 ing that his own market at Bardwick was suffering from 
 the competition of Adolph's port at Ltibeck, and that his 
 salt springs at Luneburg were inferior to those possessed 
 by the Count Thodulo, he offered a choice of alternatives. 
 Either the count must cede half Ltibeck and the salt- 
 works to the duke, or the duke will prohibit merchants 
 from frequenting Llibeck. The count refused to accede 
 to these monstrous conditions, and Henry stopped the 
 Ltibeck market, ordered the merchandise to be trans- 
 ferred to Bardwick, and closed up the salt springs of 
 his rival. What wonder that he was hated as well as 
 feared! "He was the prince of the princes of the land. 
 He crushed the necks of the rebels, and broke their 
 fortresses, and made peace in the land, and had too 
 great a heritage." ^ Yet even his adversaries reluctantly 
 admit his greatness. "Henry the Lion, Albert the 
 Bear, Frederick Barbarossa were three men capable of 
 converting the world." 
 
 Albert the Bear and Henry the Lion and Wichmann, 
 Archbishop of Magdeburg, the friend and counsellor of 
 
 ' Helmold, ii. 6. 
 
CHAP. VIII] EXPANSION OF N.E. GERMANY 21 
 
 Barbarossa, were the last of tlie colonizing nobles of the 
 North who took an active part in imperial politics.'^ 
 If it had not been for a lucky accident — the conversion 
 of Pribislav of Bohemia to Christianity and his nomi- 
 nation of Albert as his heir — the Ascanian Margrave 
 of the Nordmark would hardly have been able to triple 
 the area of his domains.^ But the empire gradually lost 
 its hold upon the energies and the imagination of the 
 Germans of the north. The Margraves of Brandenburg 
 were the chamberlains of the empire, and one of them, 
 Otto III., even aspired to the imperial crown in 1256. 
 But their policy was naturally governed by local rather 
 than imperial interests. In the great struggle which 
 succeeded the death of Henry VI. there are neither 
 consistent Welfs nor consistent Wibelings. It is more 
 important for them to know upon which side the 
 Archbishop of Magdeburg or the King of Denmark 
 may be, in order that they may choose the other, for 
 these are their real adversaries, the one cleaving their 
 territories in two, the other threatening their northern 
 frontiers. Yet after all the empire is a shadow which 
 it is always useful upon occasion to invoke. Again 
 and again, out of the confusion of the north, voices 
 come to the great Sicilian ruler who is battling in 
 Italy, and who, if he cannot give effective help, can 
 at any rate dispense charters. In 1235 Frederick II. 
 confirms to the Margraves of Brandenburg, "out of 
 his superabundant grace," the Duchy of Pomerania, a 
 gift which the margraves are not slow to utilize. 
 Llibeck, Goslar, Ratzeburg receive imperial privileges, 
 
 1 For Wichmann's colonizing activity, cf. Lavisse, La Mar cite de Brande- 
 hourg, p. 105. 
 
 2 The House of Albert the Bear is called the Ascanian house, from 
 the Castle of Aschersleben, which -was latinized into Ascaria, and then 
 corrupted into Ascania. 
 
22 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 for the great ambition of a rising city is to become a 
 free town, under the direct protection of the emperor, 
 and liberated from feudal interference. Even the 
 knights of the sword who are fighting pagans far away 
 in Livonia and Curland ask and obtain the " protection 
 and defence of the empire." Even Hermann of Salza, 
 the Grandmaster of the Knights of the Teutonic Order 
 receives from Frederick II. permission to conquer the 
 heathen country of Prussia.^ The work of colonization 
 proceeded more rapidly than before. The ]\Iarch of 
 Brandenburg was nearly doubled between 1170 and 
 1267. In 1231 the long struggle between the German 
 knights and the Prussians began, which resulted in 
 making the Teutonic Order one of the powers of 
 Europe. Between 1231 and 1238 Thorn, Kulm, and 
 Marienwerder were founded. By 1283 the Prussians 
 are cowed, and these hard, rapacious, but valorous and 
 keen-sighted Germans rule supreme from the great 
 bend of the Vistula to the further shore of the Lower 
 Niemen. 
 
 The men who did these things were not diverted by 
 Italian wars and far-reaching diplomatic combinations. 
 The "great deed of the German people in the Middle 
 Ages,"^the conquest of three-fifths of modern Germany 
 from the Slaves, was not the work of the emperors 
 From 965 to 1134, a period of 179 years, hardly an 
 inch was gained in the north and north-east. The 
 Saxon wars paralyzed advance, the Italian wars 
 diverted ambition, the ecclesiastical struggle perplexed 
 the motives of men. The crown passed to a Middle- 
 German and then to a South-German dynasty. From 
 
 ^H.B.,\\. 549-52; iv. 940-1; ii. 768, 577, 625; i. 643; iv. 821; and 
 Lavisse, La Marche de Brandehourg, p. 152. 
 2 Lampreoht, Deutsche OescMchte, iii. 349. 
 
CHAP, vili] EXPANSION OF NE. GERMANY 23 
 
 the beginning of the twelfth century Saxony, the 
 natural basis for a forward policy in the east, is prac- 
 tically what Gregory VII. hoped it might become, "a 
 regnum Saxonicum " ; it is no longer the citadel of the 
 empire, but an outwork held by a jealous and more 
 than half-independent garrison. The Hohenstauffen 
 try to recover their losses in Swabia and in Italy. 
 By a kind of tacit compact Frederick I. leaves Henry 
 the Lion to govern the north. What South-German 
 knight, with the pride of race and the imperial idea 
 working in him, would abandon all the glories of Italy 
 to waste his prowess upon squalid Poles and Prussians, 
 in a dreary plain and under an inclement sky ? Frede- 
 rick Barbarossa and his descendants conceived that 
 their duties lay elsewhere. It was easy to grant 
 charters to Livonian and Prussian knights, as easy as 
 to send the Union Jack to an African chief. Nothing 
 came of it. The Teutonic Order regarded itself as 
 holding of the Papacy. The Margraves of Brandenburg 
 went the way of the wind when it began to belly 
 the sails of Innocent IV., and they took care to make 
 their profit out of the weak and distracted empire of 
 William of Holland. They might well have argued 
 that Frederick II. had sacrificed Germany to ambition 
 when he surrendered Nordalbingia to the powerful 
 Danish monarch in 1214, had they not themselves 
 subsequently espoused his cause. Sensible men must 
 have understood that the empire was powerless in these 
 regions, and the decisive proof came in 1241. The 
 Mongols who had ravaged Russia and sacked Kiev, 
 marched into the Polish and Hungarian gateways, 
 and all Europe was aghast at the hideous portent. 
 The Imperial Chancery wrote ream upon ream of 
 protestation, passionately, eloquently, with all its 
 
24 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [ft. i, ch. viii 
 
 southern exuberance of phrase ; the emperor sent brief 
 and soldier-like rules for meeting the invaders, and it 
 is possible that some horsemen, spared from the fevered 
 struggle of Italian politics, rode up to check the foe 
 upon the Danube. But the emperor, remembering how 
 when he was away in Palestine the Pope had treach- 
 erously invaded his dominions, dared not leave Italy 
 to his enemies. The Polish chivalry, fleshing their 
 knightly swords in this their first achievement for Latin 
 Christianity, helped to save the north from the Tartars, 
 but the days of Otto the Great were long gone by, 
 and the emperor, excommunicated and deeply involved 
 in Italian warfare, was not at hand to lead the hosts 
 of Germany in the hour of her greatest peril.^ 
 
 '^E.B., v., pp. 1139, 1143, 1148, 1215. The statement of Matthew 
 Paris, ed. Luard., iv., p. 131, that Enzio was sent from Italy with 4000 
 horse to join Conrad in Hungary, though accepted by Cherrier, La lutte 
 de la Papaute et les Empereurs de la maison de Souahe, is elsewhere 
 unsupported, is rejected by Wolff, and seems to me on many grounds to 
 be suspicious. Cf. Howorth, History of the Mongols, ii., p. 55. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE EXPANSION OF GEEMANY IN THE SOUTH-EAST. 
 
 The progress of German colonization in tlie south-east 
 is almost wholly connected during this period with the 
 fortunes of a single family, the Babenbergers. Geo- 
 graphical causes serve to explain why the history of this 
 region is more simple and more continuous than the 
 history of the north-east. The valley of the Danube 
 piercing through difl&cult forest-clad hill country pro- 
 vided a solitary but a narrow outlet into the plains of 
 Hungary. There was no large frontier to defend ; flank 
 attacks from Bohemia were rendered infrequent by a 
 screen of forest and mountain, and no Magyar forces 
 cared to push through the Styrian highlands of the 
 south. The German met his foeman face to face, and 
 geography forbade a dispersion of his energies. Thus it 
 is that a single family posted in a confined strategical 
 position is enabled to dominate the politics of the 
 Middle Danube for two hundred and seventy years. It 
 is not necessary to enter into the elaborate archaeological 
 discussions which centre round the origin of the Baben- 
 bergers. Two modern authors derive them from Bavaria, 
 others from Swabia, others from Franconia.^ The fact 
 
 1 Otto of Freising, Chran., vi. 15 ; F.D.O., xii., pp. 113-36 ; Mitt. d. Imt. 
 Oest. GescL, vi., pp. 385-88 ; Eiezler, Gesch. Baierns, i., 360 ; Stein, Oesch. 
 Franhens, i., p. 107. 11 ; ii., pp. 299. 3, 301 ; Sohmitz, Osterreichs Scheyern 
 
26 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 is that in the Middle Ages there was little knowledge 
 professed upon this subject. The Babenbergers have no 
 good biographer or family historian. A short history of 
 the first Babenbergers written in Melk in the second 
 half of the twelfth century, a short biography of Mar- 
 grave Henry, a history of Leopold III. and his children 
 written in Kloster Neuburg, a few jejune monastic 
 annals make up the tale of literary evidence. The 
 historian of Melk, the ducal monastery, writing a history 
 of the dynasty by special ducal request reveals little but 
 his own entire ignorance. The best writers fly at higher 
 game — the ecclesiastical struggle or the crusades. The 
 only author of real talent who might be expected to 
 have special knowledge, Otto of Freising, tells us little 
 even of his own family. He has been educated in Paris 
 in the latest philosophic mode ; he has joined the 
 Cistercians after the last religious fashion, he frequents 
 the court and the camp of Barbarossa, he moves in the 
 brilliant whirl of imperial politics. Of the inner history 
 of the march he is ostentatiously careless. What can be 
 the human interest of obscure strivings with marshes 
 and backwoods, and Slaves and jMagyars ? He has left 
 us to conjecture the real history of the Austrian land 
 from charters and laws or the manifest tokens of achieved 
 progress.-^ 
 
 Yet this Babenberg family laid the foundations of the 
 modern Austrian empire. It is possible from the charters 
 to trace the steps by which the Babenbergs slowly carved 
 themselves a way down the valley of the Danube. At 
 first the capital of the margraves is at Pechlarn ; then, 
 
 Wittelshacher oder die Dynastie der Baheraberger ; Juritsch, Geschichte der 
 Babenherger, p. 13. 
 
 ^ Eedlicli, " Die Osterreichische Aunalistik bis zum Ansgang des drei- 
 zehnten Jahrhunderts " {ilitt. d. Inst. Oest. Oesch., vol. iii., pp. 497-538). 
 The chronicles are printed SS., vol. ix., pp. 474-843 ; vol. xxiv., pp. 69-71. 
 
CHAP, ix] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 27 
 
 under Henry I., it is at Melk ; later we find it at Tulln ; 
 finally, under Leopold IV., it is at Vienna. "We can 
 also trace, though more obscurely, the steps by which 
 the great Bohemian forest, the north wood or Eied- 
 march, was penetrated by German settlers, who made 
 their clearings and built their villages along the northern 
 bank of the Danube.^ Before the dynasty died out in 
 the middle of the thirteenth century, how great a change 
 had come over the land ! Vienna was a large and 
 thriving city, second only, it was said, to Cologne. The 
 Eussian trade passed up and down the Danube, bringing 
 grist to the custom officers of the duke. The men of 
 Venice brought the spices of the east, the men of 
 Bremen the herrings of the Baltic to the mart of 
 Vienna. The Eegensburg traders in the march were so 
 important a body that they were protected by special 
 privileges. The Jews, led by their keen business in- 
 stinct, had settled in great numbers in the land, and 
 were said even to exercise an influence over ducal policy. 
 They too, like the Eegensbtirgers, were safeguarded by 
 special legal provisions in the town law of Vienna. 
 Literature too had begun to make itself heard. One of 
 the fathers of South-German poetry sang to his viol in 
 the brilliant ducal court at Vienna, and the praises of 
 that city are celebrated by the much-travelled Walther 
 von der Vogelweide, the least insipid of the Minnesingers. 
 In 976 a certain Leopold, count in the Donnegau, 
 brother of Bertold, who already, under Otto I., had 
 been named count in the Nordgau, is found described 
 as Marchio, that is to say, as Marquis of the Ost-mark. 
 This mark, first in 996 named Osterrichi or Austria, 
 
 ' There is a valuable series of antiquarian maps of the Riedmarch, the 
 Ostmarch and Maohland in Hasenohrl's excellent article, " Deutschland's 
 Sudostlice Marken in 10, 11 und 12 Jahrhundert" (Archiv. f. Oest. 
 Oeschic/ote, vol. 82, p. 419). 
 
28 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 stretched from the Inn and the great Rodel [north-west 
 of Linz] to St. Polten on the Traise and to Spitz on 
 the Wachau. Its eastern border lay somewhere be- 
 tween Melk and Mautern, so that the whole march west 
 to east would not have measured more than sixty miles. 
 Of this first margrave, who died at Wurzburg one 
 July morning in 994 of an arrow wound while playing 
 with his knights after matins, we know but little. 
 " None more prudent," says the chronicler, " or better 
 in all his actions did he leave behind him."^ He must 
 have borne himself well in many nameless struggles 
 with the Hungarians and in the rough battle of the 
 agricultural settlement, for as late as 985 the diocese 
 of Passau is described as a solitude, so destitute of 
 serfs that the freemen had to turn villeins in the places 
 belonging to the ecclesiastical patrimony.^ Under his 
 guidance the Germans pushed on to the Viennese forest, 
 and partially settled it ; the Church of Passau began to 
 lift up her head, to claim the devastated monasteries 
 of St. Florian, of Kremsmiinster, of St. Polten, to 
 acquire imperial confirmation of her pious forgeries.^ 
 Between 983 and 991 the Duke of Bavaria held an 
 assembly of the bishops, counts, and inhabitants of 
 the march to determine the claims of the Church and 
 of individuals on the newly acquired lands, and to 
 settle the payments which were to be made by the 
 families of bishops and abbots to the margraves. At 
 this assembly the places which belonged to the See of 
 Passau were determined and enumerated. They were 
 found to stretch right up to the Viennese forest.* It 
 
 1 Ttiietmar, iv. 14. -Meiller, Regesten, p. 1, No. 3. 
 
 3 In 991 when Pilgrim of Passau died the land between the Enns and 
 the forest appears to have been partially recovered. 
 * Meiller, Regesten, p. 2, No. 4. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 29 
 
 is ample evidence that the first Babenberg margrave 
 had not been idle. 
 
 We know nothing of the second margrave, Henry I. 
 [998-1018]. It is only possible to catch from the 
 charters of his time some indications of German coloni- 
 zation. We find that the great ecclesiastical foundations 
 are recovering or acquiring possessions in the march, 
 possessions which, with the singular tenacity of pious 
 foundations, they managed to preserve into the present 
 century.^ Now, too, for the first time, German squatters 
 are settling on the eastern border of the Viennese forest, 
 the greatest part of which, a territory some eighteen 
 miles square, is granted to the margrave, and is destined 
 to be the source from which in after days the abbeys of 
 the Holy Cross and Maria Zell were so richly endowed. 
 
 But the advance of the Germans was slow and 
 difiicult. Vienna was built only to be recaptured by 
 the Hungarians.^ Under Margrave Adalbert [1018- 
 1055], an imperial army led by Conrad II. was forced 
 to retreat ; a tract of land on the eastern border was 
 restored to Hungary, and a period of confused and 
 active struggle began which has left a splendid imprint 
 upon the greatest of the Medieval German Epics. 
 From 1038 to 1077 Hungary was torn by the dissen- 
 sions of rival competitors to the throne, one of whom 
 was supported by the native aristocracy, and the 
 other by the German king. Again and again German 
 lines cross the frontier, and turn back bafiled by 
 marsh and forest and the difficulties of commissariat. 
 Only a few scraps of authentic history survive to ns 
 
 ' Thus Freising acquires Ulmerfeld on the Ips in 996, which it retains 
 till 1802. Thus too Tegernsee acquires in 1002 Unter Loiben [between 
 Stein and Durrenstein], which it retains till 1806. Meiller, Regesten, 
 p. 2, No. 2 ; and p. 191, No. 7 ; p. 3, No. 6 ; and pp. 192-3, No. 14. 
 
 2 Ann. Alt., 1030 ; SS. xx. Y91. 
 
30 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 concerning the margraves of this time, but these are 
 illustrative of their gallantry and devotion. Both 
 Adalbert and his son Ernest [1067-74] are closely 
 •connected by ties of friendship and common perils with 
 the emperors of the Salian house. The charters tell us 
 how Henry III. loaded Adalbert with gifts of land to 
 reward his service and fidelity, how Henry IV. describes 
 Ernest as "our knight," and gives him as a reward for true 
 service land amounting to forty manses in the forest of 
 the Raab.-^ The Hungarian wars of the eleventh century 
 in every way fortified the position of the Babenberg 
 house. In 1043 the land between the Leitha and the 
 march, which had been won from the Germans by King 
 Stephen, was restored to them by King Ava, and twenty 
 years later the freshly ceded territory became incor- 
 porated in the east march. The wars too had the effect 
 of bringing the margraves into close connection with the 
 monarchy, of stimulating the stream of royal benevolence 
 to the Babenberg house, and of founding that tradition 
 of loyalty "which was one of the secrets of its strength. 
 Margrave Ernest — "The most illustrious man in the 
 realm, and renowned for many victories against the 
 Hungarians"^ — remains true to the imperial side during 
 the War of the Investitures, and dies loyally at the 
 battle of Hohenburg [June 9, 1075], fighting in the 
 second division with the Bavarians under Duke Welf. 
 
 Margrave Leopold II. [1075-1096] at first follows his 
 father's example ; he is loyal to Henry ; Henry is 
 generous to him. But the storms of the great ecclesi- 
 astical struggle sweep fiercely through Southern Ger- 
 many. A noble Westphalian, once chaplain to Henry 
 III. and his pious wife Agnes, is promoted to the See of 
 
 ' Meiller, Regesten, p. 6, No. 10 ; p. 6, No. 11 ; p. 9, No. 10. 
 ^ Lamberti Annales, SS. v., p. 227. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 31 
 
 Passau. He preaches the celibacy of the clergy to a 
 degenerate and dissolute crew of clerks and monks. 
 He expels the clerks of St. Hippolytus, abandoned to 
 drunkenness, lust, greed, and usury. He makes a 
 clean sweep of the monks of Kremsmtinster. He 
 summons men of high character and strict discipline 
 into his diocese ; he finds almost all the churches of 
 wood, he leaves them almost all of stone ; he finds them 
 bare of adornments, he decorates them with frescoes 
 and pictures and books ; he finds many of the monas- 
 teries ravaged by the Hungarians or fallen into disrepair, 
 he restores them. In all this work he encounters great 
 persecution from the clergy who wish to keep their wives, 
 who regard him as violating the custom of the land, and 
 from the imperial party. He is driven from Passau, for 
 the emperor descends upon the diocese, restores the ejected 
 monks and clerks, and the " See of Passau becomes the 
 See of Satan." He retires to Saxony, he visits Rome, is 
 made papal legate, and ultimately takes refuge in the 
 east march with Margrave Leopold.^ 
 
 Long before this, Altmann of Passau had made efforts 
 to conciliate the margrave. He had chosen him to be 
 advocate and protector of the land belonging to St. 
 Nicholas of Passau in the march ; he had given him a 
 benefice of three manses and seventy slaves in one of 
 the little islands on the Danube near Kloster Neubursr.^ 
 How far Leopold was afli'ected by these advances we 
 are unable to say. At any rate, in 1078 he quarrels 
 with the emperor, and leaves the court at Regensburg 
 never to return. But the defection of Leopold to the 
 ecclesiastical party did not exercise any enduring 
 influence over the fortunes of his line. The emperor 
 indeed made a successful foray into the march ; his 
 
 1 Vita Altonanni, SS. xii., pp. 226-43. ^ Meiller, Regesten, p. 10, n. 2. 
 
32 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 ally Wratislaw of Bohemia, aided by Slaves and Bav- 
 arians, devastated the land with fire and sword, and 
 defeated the margrave in a pitched fight [1082]. 
 But the margrave w^as too powerful to be ousted, 
 and Henry was too feeble to do much against him. 
 Although " he was very true to the cause of the Holy 
 Peter against the Schismatics," the emperor made no 
 effort to contest the succession of his son.' When 
 Leopold III. [1096-1136] succeeded his father, the 
 religious war in Germany was dying of exhaustion, 
 and the east was beginning to lay its powerful spell 
 upon the western mind. The South-German knights, 
 with their customary vigour and love of adventure, 
 threw themselves energetically into the crusades, and 
 the Babenbergs, planted on the extreme eastern frontier 
 of Germany, become in time a famous crusading 
 dynasty. Leopold's mother Ita found a tomb in 
 Central Asia following the crusade of Duke Welf, but 
 Leopold himself had no time for the east. He throws 
 himself energetically upon the side of Henry V. in his 
 base but successful revolt against the old emperors ; he 
 becomes Henry's brother-in-law ; he participates in 
 imperial affairs, and on the death of Henry in 1125 
 there was even a question of conferring the throne upon 
 the margrave. We do not know how much support 
 Leopold could have obtained. His piety, his loyalty, 
 his connection with the sister of the late emperor, 
 would have constituted a powerful claim. But there 
 were strong reasons why both Leopold and the princes 
 should decline the prospect. The princes may have 
 reflected that the Babenberg dynasty had been posted 
 on the eastern frontier ; that it had been a military and 
 colonizing dynasty; that it had been the bulwark of 
 
 1 Bemold ad 1095, SS. v., p. 463. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 33 
 
 Germany against the Hungarians, the protector of 
 German civilization in a difficult land ; that as late as 
 1118 there had been a serious and successful Hungarian 
 inroad into Austria ; that the Babenbergs had played 
 but a small and subsidiary part in German affairs ; that 
 they possessed little wealth outside the march ; that 
 it would be dangerous and impolitic to distract their 
 energies. On the other hand Leopold felt himself to 
 be old. He reflected that he had many sons who, upon 
 his death, would bring discord into the empire, and it 
 seems likely that the adhesion of the ecclesiastical 
 princes was only offered upon the understanding that 
 he would concede to the Church upon the question of 
 Investiture. But, whatever may have been his real 
 or assumed motives, he declined the offer, and more 
 than a hundred and fifty years elapsed before the 
 imperial crown went to Vienna.^ 
 
 The piety of Leojoold was rewarded in the fifteenth 
 century with the honours of canonization, and is evi- 
 denced in his own age by several monastic foundations, 
 and by a long succession of gifts or " restorations " to 
 Austrian monasteries. He sent his fifth son. Otto, after- 
 wards famous as the historian of Barbarossa, to studv 
 theology in Paris, and apj)ears himself to have attached 
 an importance to literature. He also introduced the 
 Cistercian monks into the east march at the instance of 
 his pious and more learned son, and it was he who founded 
 the Cistercian House of Heiligenkreutz, where the statue 
 of the last prince of the Babenberg house may still be seen.- 
 
 1 Simeon Dunelm, Hist. Cont., SS. xiii. 125 ; JVarr. de Election. Lotluir., 
 SS. xii. 510; Huber, vol. i., p. 241 ; Giesebrecht, KZ., iv., pp. 416, 19. 
 Juritsch, pp. 137, 8. Leopold had eighteen children. Six sons and five 
 daughters survived him. The two most distinguished were Otto of 
 Freising and Conrad, 1149 Bishop of Passau, 1164 Archbishop of Salzburg. 
 
 - Meiller, p. 22, Nos. 57, 58. 
 
 VOL. II. C 
 
34 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 Leopold III. had declined to stand as a serious candi- 
 date for the German kingship. But another honour 
 was in store for his house. His son, Leopold IV. 
 [1136-47], became Duke of Bavaria, and it was hie 
 son's Duchy of Bavaria which ultimately led to the 
 creation of the Duchy of Austria. Of this Leopold IV. 
 we know little, for he died before his prime. That he 
 was the friend of the Emperor Conrad, who found him a 
 useful lever against the Bavarian Welfs, gave him their 
 Bavarian duchy, and utilized his Austrian forces in the 
 Saxon war, that he was pious and brave, that he en- 
 countered great opposition in Bavaria, and found his 
 duchy anything but a pleasant and profitable gift, 
 when we have said this we have said all. 
 
 Leopold IV. was childless, and he was succeeded in 
 the march by his brother Henry [1141-77], who had 
 been Count Palatine of the Ehine, and who now 
 resigned that dignity for t^ie Austrian margraviate and 
 the Bavarian duchy. He too found the Bavarian 
 duchy to be a gift that was no gift. Despite the fact 
 that his wife was the widow of Duke Henry the Welf, 
 that his brother was Bishop of Freising, his hold upon 
 Bavaria was always of the slightest. Wars with the 
 Church of Eegensburg, with the Margrave of Styria 
 involved him in trouble and the papal ban until St. 
 Bernard swept Germany into the Second Crusade. 
 Then Henry and his brother Otto followed the emperor 
 to the east, sharing in the one inglorious achievement of 
 that most calamitous expedition, the siege of Damascus. 
 
 The crusade, however, had postponed, it had not 
 settled the Bavarian problem. The young Henry the 
 Lion was laying claims upon the duchy, which had 
 been snatched from his famUy by the merest pretext. 
 It was the interest of Frederick Barbarossa, who had 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 35 
 
 been raised to the throne for the express purpose of 
 terminating the strife of Welf and Wibelin, to satisfy 
 the rival house with whom he was connected by 
 marriage. But for four years the obstinate margrave 
 resisted all proposals of accommodation. It was not 
 until September, 1156, at a crowded meeting at 
 Regensburg, that a settlement was finally made. Henry 
 of Austria restored to the emperor the Duchy of 
 Bavaria. With seven banners the emperor gave it 
 as a fief to Henry the Lion. Then Henry of Austria 
 restored the March of Austria, and three counties, 
 which the Margrave Leopold had held as fiefs of the 
 Bavarian duchy [probably between the Traun and the 
 wood of Passau] to the emperor, with two banners. 
 Then with the counsel and advice of the princes, de- 
 clared by the Duke of Bohemia, the emperor raised 
 Austria and its appendant counties to be a duchy, 
 and conferred it with two banners, not only upon his 
 uncle Henry, but also on his wife Theodora.^ A 
 privilege too was given to Henry and his wife, which 
 raised Austria to a special position among the German 
 principalities. The duchy was to descend not only 
 to sons, but to daughters. If Henry and his wife 
 were to die childless, they could propose a successor 
 to the emperor ; no one, great or small, was to exercise 
 jurisdiction within the duchy without the duke's con- 
 sent. The duke should not be bound to render any 
 imperial service, except to appear when summoned at 
 the imperial court days in Bavaria, and to send his 
 contingent to every imperial expedition undertaken in 
 the lands bordering upon Austria.^ 
 
 ' Theodora was the niece of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel. Juritsch, 
 p. 187. 
 
 2 Otto Fris., Oeita, ii. 32. For the Privilegium Minus, cf. Wattenbaeh, 
 
36 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 This privilege of 1156 marks an epoch in the history 
 of Austria. The march had long been faced with 
 special problems, military and colonial. Its inhabitants 
 had had to win their way across the great north wood, 
 to fight Slaves and Hungarians and Czecks, to build 
 castles and towns, and fortify islands. Its organization 
 was something special ; simpler, and more centralized 
 than the organization of the older, safer parts of Ger- 
 many, for it was not di^'ided into counties ; or, if it 
 was so divided, the counties had long been absorbed by 
 the margrave. It had no imperial towns or imperial 
 churches, and the j^o'^^'sr of the margrave was not 
 broken by such powerful ecclesiastical organizations as 
 confronted the secular princes in Bavaria or in Franconia. 
 For nearly two hundred years it had been ruled by 
 members of a single family. It had stood in a way 
 apart from the central life of Germany. But the 
 margraves seem at some periods to have been dependent 
 upon the Duke of Bavaria. They were technically 
 bound to attend all the imperial courts and hosts ; 
 they were liable to have their oflice taken from them 
 by the emperor. In the reign of Henry III. the 
 imperial armies, headed liy the emperor, cross the 
 march again and ao;ain. The land which is won from 
 the Hungarian is ceded to the emperor, who makes 
 an independent march of it, and twenty years 
 elapse before this march becomes absorbed by the 
 Babenberg family.^ So too all land ■^Tested from 
 the Slaves and Hungarians is deemed imperial land, 
 and though the emperor's influence in the march is 
 
 Archiv. f. Oest. Gesch., viii. 10 ; Brunner, " Das Gerichtliclie Exemtious- 
 reclit der Babenberger" [Sitztnigshericht der Kais. Akad., vol. xlvii.] 
 
 ^I prefer to follow Hasenohrl in this point. Archiv. f. Oest. Geschichtey 
 vol. 82, p. 419. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 37 
 
 intermittent, there is no recognized limit to its possible 
 extent. 1 
 
 But now that the march has become a hereditary 
 duchy, that the obligations of its dukes to the empire 
 are narrowed and defined, that the highest con- 
 stitutional sanction has been procured for the unim- 
 peded jurisdictional authority of the duke within the 
 limits of the duchy, Austria starts upon a new way. 
 She is still part of the empire, and the Austrian dukes 
 still take their share in imperial politics. Henry 
 the first duke appears at Barbarossa's court, does 
 military work in Italy, swears adhesion to the Wurz- 
 burg decrees of 1165, accepts an embassy to Constanti- 
 nople in 1166. When Henry the Lion ten years later 
 tries to win him from the emperor, the duke declines the 
 peril and the temptation.^ In spite of the fact that his 
 brother and his nephew were on the Alexandrine side, 
 that he was personally appealed to by Alexander, that 
 the whole ecclesiastical influence of South-Eastern Ger- 
 many was Alexandrine, Henry will not break with 
 Frederick. 
 
 But the connection with the empire henceforth brings 
 strength, not weakness, to the duchy. The emperor no 
 longer Hmits the jurisdictional power of the duke by 
 the grant of immunities. On the other hand the duke 
 will appeal to the emperor to settle a boundary dispute 
 between Bohemia and Austria, just as the duke's 
 mediation is invoked to settle the issues between the 
 
 ' It is significant that pending the inquiry held by the Duke of Bavaria 
 into corporate and individual claims in 985, the land was held in the 
 possession of the emperor [Meiller, Reg., p. 1, No. 4]. 
 
 2 Yet Henry of Austria had in 1174 alone of all the princes declined to 
 consent to the deposition of Adalbert, Archbishop of Salzburg, Barba- 
 rossa's chief ecclesiastical antagonist in Germany,at theCouncil of Ratisbon. 
 Chron. Reicherspergense ad 1174 ; cf. Harz., Cone. Germ., iii., p. 406. 
 
38 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 emperor and Milan. ^ But Austria goes her own way. 
 The duke busies himself with the consolidation of his 
 power in the duchy ;* he is involved in conflicts with 
 his brothers, the Bishops of Freising and Passau, about 
 jurisdiction and about dues ; he is involved in a great 
 border quarrel with Bohemia, for Czech and German 
 backwoodsmen are at last coming into touch with one 
 another in the Nordwald, and sixty thousand Bohemians 
 and Moravians invade his land. At the same time he is 
 pushing eastward. He makes his capital at Vienna, 
 being the first of the Austrian dukes to date documents 
 from that town. " In our estate in the territory of 
 Favia, which is called by modern men Vienna," an 
 abbey is dedicated to the Virgin and St. Gregory, and 
 served by a band of simple Irish monks. This abbey, 
 the Scot- Cloister, is to be the burial place of the ducal 
 house. ' 
 
 The second duke, Leopold V. [1177-94], has gone 
 down to fame as the crusader who imprisoned King 
 Richard of England. He was in fact one of those 
 enthusiastic South-German knights who were idealized 
 by Tyrolese singers, generous and enterprising and 
 pious, a crusader even in extreme old age, but withal 
 shrewd and politic in his management of affairs. His 
 rule is rendered remarkable by the peaceful acquisition 
 of Styria. In 1184 Ottocar IV. of Styria, who was 
 childless, announced that he had determined to give the 
 land of Styria to his beloved relation Leopold, Duke of 
 
 1 Meiller, Regesten, p. 56, No. 8 ; p. 115, No. 122. 
 
 ^ A story in the Regesten illustrates the man. A ducal ministerialis had 
 sold a mill to the Abbey of Admont. " Quod quia sine permissione 
 domini sui ducis praesumpserit, indignatum et iratum Ducem pro eadem 
 re fratres cenobii tribus marcis et uno equo placuerunt" \_Reg., p. 52, 
 No. 89]. 
 
 ^Meiller, Regesten, pp. 43, 44, Nos. 51, 52, 53. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 39 
 
 Austria, with all its appurtenances except 500 manses^ 
 Two years later, in 1186, Ottocar IV. makes a treaty 
 with. Duke Leopold of Austria, which illustrates the 
 extreme independence of these south-eastern potentates. 
 After consulting with his chief men he designs " the most 
 strenuous, most noble, most faithful Duke of Austria " to 
 be his successor, for the two provinces being contiguous 
 will best be governed under one peace and one prince. 
 The rights and franchises of the Styrian ministeriales, 
 clerks and inhabitants are expressly guaranteed, and ap- 
 pear to have been already consigned to writing. The 
 advocacies of monasteries and the advowsons of churches 
 held by the predecessors of the Styrian duke were now 
 to be transferred to the Duke of Austria. Even if the 
 successors of the Duke of Austria were to lose the favour 
 of the empire they were still to be lords of the human 
 beings transferred to them under the contract,^ and it 
 was provided that the Duke of Austria for the time 
 being should be Duke of Styria as well.* 
 
 No more striking instance can be given of the free 
 manner in which a German prince disposed of what 
 was really not his to give, for the government of Styria 
 and the ducal title were imperial fiefs.* It was, of 
 
 1 Meiller, Reg., p. 61, No. 25 ; Prolich [Diplom., ii., 311, No. 43]. Huber 
 rejects this diploma on the ground that Styria was not Ottocar's to give. 
 The terra and the ducatus were imperial fiefs, and not to be confounded 
 with the hereditas [cf. Cont. Zwet. i. 11, p. 543, ad 1186]. But Ottocar 
 was no observer of forms. He cedes the ducatus in 1186 [Meiller, p. 62, 
 No. 29]. 
 
 ^This sentence is considered by Huber to be an interpolation of the 
 time of Frederick II. 
 
 5 This Erbvertrag or contract of inheritance is contained in two docu- 
 ments, dated August 17, 1086, given in Meiller, Reg., pp. 62, 63, Nos. 29, 
 30. Cf. also Urk. d. Steiermarh, i. 651. The facsimile is in Muchar's 
 Gesch. der SteiermarL 
 
 *Up till 1180 Styria had been a march held in subjection to Bavaria. 
 The margrave held fiefs of the Bavarian duke, and had to attend his 
 
40 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 course, necessary to negotiate with the emperor for 
 formal investiture. But could that investiture have 
 been refused ? Ottocar could in fact transfer to 
 Leopold the substance of power. He could give him 
 his own Styrian allods, his own very numerous advo- 
 cacies, his own rights over the ministeriales. Once 
 in possession of these advantages Leopold could have 
 made it unpleasant for any incoming duke, could have 
 made it impossible for him to secure a foothold in 
 the duchy. On May 24, 1192, not a fortnight after 
 Ottocar's death, Frederick invested Leopold of Austria 
 and his son with the Duchy of Styria, and but for 
 a brief interval [1192-1198] the two duchies re- 
 mained united together, according to Ottocar's dis- 
 position.-^ 
 
 Then came the double election which followed after 
 the death of Henry VI., the importance of which 
 can scarcely be over-estimated. The downfall of the 
 imperial power in Germany, the ecclesiastical emanci- 
 pation of Bohemia and its elevation to the dignity 
 of a kingdom, the interference of foreign powers 
 in German electoral concerns, the development of a 
 thoroughly unscrupulous electoral policy, the re-asser- 
 tion of ultramontane influence in German capitular 
 elections, the formal recognition on the part of the 
 empire of the privileges usurped by the princes, the 
 formal abandonment of the control over the Church 
 
 court days [cf. Huber, p. 215 ; Hermann. Alt. Ann. S.S., xvii. 382 ; M.B., 
 xxix. 6, 260 ; Meiller, p. 35, No. 23] ; but Frederick I. in 1180 separated 
 Styria from Bavaria and made it a duchy held immediately of the 
 empire. The transfer of Styria to Austria was confirmed by the Emperor 
 in 1187. 
 
 1 On Ottocar's death Leopold holds a great meeting of Styrian minis- 
 teriales at Steier, and decides to resume all donations made by Ottocar to 
 churches, which might be shown to be detrimental either to the cities or 
 to the ducal government [Meiller, Regesten, p. 70, No. 55]. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 41 
 
 which had been so closely exercised by Barbarossa ; 
 all these events are nltimately traceable to this period 
 of discord. Austria too aspired to profit by the occa- 
 sion. Leopold VI., " the Glorious, a most eloquent 
 and literate man, the father of the whole country, the 
 ornament of the land, and the solace of the clergy," 
 attempted to secure some measure of ecclesiastical in- 
 dependence for Austria by founding a bishopric at 
 Vienna,^ but the resistance of the See of Passau frus- 
 trated the attempt, and the pious Leopold acquiesced 
 in defeat. Yet the reign of the last but one of the 
 Babenbergs brought prosperity and distinction to the 
 duchy. Austrian knights followed Leopold's banner 
 against the Albigensians of Toulouse, and the Saracens 
 of Calatrava. The valour of the duke was exhibited 
 beneath the walls of Beaufort in Palestine and Damietta 
 in Egypt, and the confidence of Pope and emperor alike 
 was reposed in the wealthy potentate, the husband of 
 a Byzantine princess, who had so generously endowed 
 the German Order, and who was so perfect a mirror of 
 the conventional and easy virtues of medieval chivalry. 
 The daughter of Leopold was married to Henry VIL, 
 the son of the emperor, and the Austrian duke was 
 chosen to mediate between Frederick and Pope Honorius 
 in 1228. The Pope was convinced that so pious and 
 prosperous a noble could not fail of an eternal reward, 
 and solaced his widow with the most confident assurances. 
 His heir should have been grateful to him for some 
 extensive and provident purchases of land, while Vienna 
 had every reason to regret the prince who was so 
 generous a patron of the lyre, and under whose pacific 
 rule she received her first code of municipal law, and 
 became for a while the most brilliant capital in Germany. 
 
 iMeiller, p. 96, No. 64. 
 
42 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 The reign of Leopold VI., was in after times looked 
 back upon as the golden age of the Babenbergs. To 
 the men of the last decades of the thirteenth century 
 in Austria he was what Edward the Confessor was to 
 the men of the twelfth century in England, and when 
 the customs of the land were committed to writing 
 they were drawn up as they were conceived to exist in 
 Duke Leopold's day.^ 
 
 The last of the Babenberg dukes, Frederick IL, dealt 
 a serious blow to all this prosperity. His nickname, " the 
 Quarrelsome," is justified by the fact that his country 
 enjoyed the blessings of peace for one year only during 
 the sixteen years of his rule. But it is inadequate to 
 describe all the aspects of his character. He was a wild, 
 impudent, tyrannical savage, with fits of rollicking 
 generosity, but at the same time fundamentally cruel, 
 avaricious, and lawless. Wars with his own nobles and 
 ministeriales, with Bohemia and Moravia and Hungary 
 and Bavaria, make up the staple of his existence. His 
 taxation wrung a rebuke even from a servile rhymster ; 
 his constant wars dragged the peasant from the plough 
 and made his name odious in the land ; his tyranny 
 drove many of the nobles beyond the border, while 
 he confiscated the property of princes and of churches 
 to support quarrels in which no one but himself had any 
 conceivable interest.^ 
 
 Here was clearly a case in which the moral and 
 material force of the Holy Eoman Empire should be 
 invoked, and the story of the imperial intervention 
 
 ' The numerous German critics who have devoted themselves to the 
 Austrian Landrecht do not seem to have observed this. 
 
 2 Estimates of Frederick's character may be found in SS. xix. 374 ; 
 xvii., 392, 845 ; xvi., 30 ; ix., 637, 732, 596, 635. H. B., iv., 855. Picker 
 has attempted to whitewash him. Cf. also Eothe, Die Geschichte Reinniars 
 von Zweter. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 43 
 
 is SO typical botli of the strength and the weakness of 
 the imperial fabric that it may be told in some length. 
 As in the case of Henry the Lion, indignation gathers 
 among the neighbouring nobles and princes. There are 
 loud complaints at an imperial diet, a campaign is under- 
 taken, the land is ravaged, castles are besieged, the 
 emperor for a time triumphs absolutely. But then 
 comes the reaction. The duke has all along managed 
 to hold out in a few castles, and when the em- 
 peror departs he re-emerges, rapidly reconquers the 
 land, and in a few years he is more firmly seated in the 
 saddle than ever. Pope and emperor compete for his 
 favour ; the popes offer the independent bishopric of 
 Vienna, after which Leopold had aspired ; the emperor 
 promises to raise Austria to the dignity of a kingdom, 
 and, but for the mere accident of the religious scrupu- 
 losity of a girl, one of the very worst and most rebellious 
 of the many bad and rebellious princes of Medieval 
 Germany would have been made by the emperor, whom 
 he had insulted, defied, and fought, the first king of 
 Austria.^ 
 
 In one respect the oppressed subjects of the Austrian 
 duke were happy in their opportunity. No emperor 
 held a more exalted view of his own prerogative than 
 Frederick II. As early as 1217 he had afiirmed that 
 the jurisdiction or Landgericht, the compositions, the 
 bans, the marchfodder, the mines of the duchy be- 
 longed to him, though they were held by the duke in 
 virtue of a special privilege of the empire. He sum- 
 
 'The stipulation was that the duke's niece Gertrude, aged nineteen, 
 should marry the emperor, aged fifty-one (1245). The Genoese chronicler 
 [SS. xviii. 216] says that the duke refused to acquiesce in the arrange- 
 ment because the emperor was under the Papal ban. Matthew Paris 
 however, says that it was Gertrude who felt the scruples, and on many 
 grounds this seems the more probable account. Juritsch, p. 643. 
 
44 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 moned the duke to Italian court days, and paid little 
 regard to the privilegium minus, and in executing 
 justice upon his contumacious vassal, he was assisted 
 by the general sentiment of the duke's neighbours. 
 Bavaria was jealous ; the King of Bohemia, the Mar- 
 grave of Moravia, the Archbishop of Salzburg, the 
 Bishops of Bamburg and Passau and Regensburg and 
 Freising had revenues and rights in the duchy, and 
 they complained that the duke had taken them away. 
 The Austrian ministeriales, who had been crushed in 
 a revolt of 1231, complained of tyranny and violated 
 rights, and in 1235 at Mainz these recriminations were 
 loudly uttered. The duke was summoned to appear 
 before a meeting of the princes three times, but he 
 disregarded the call, and in 1236 Frederick deter- 
 mined to declare him an outlaw, and to deprive him 
 of his principalities. The emperor issued a long and 
 serious requisitory against the duke ; the duke had re- 
 fused to respond to the summons to Ravenna ; he had 
 impudently demanded 2000 marks of the emperor 
 that he might make war on Hungary; repulsed in his 
 petition he had declared that he would no longer serve 
 the emperor; he had invaded Hungary; he had de- 
 prived princes of their rights and revenues in Austria 
 and Styria ; he had oppressed the poor, the widows, 
 the orphans ; he had corresponded with the Milanese, 
 with the Old Man of the Mountains ; he had chased his 
 mother from Bohemia.^ 
 
 The duke prepared for defence. In one day he laid 
 hands on all the hoards of all the Austrian monasteries ; 
 he raised a tax of sixty pence upon the huha, and he 
 prohibited, with the counsel, it was said, of the Jews, 
 the importation of corn into the duchy. But for the 
 
 1 H.B., iv., p. 882. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 45 
 
 moment all was in vain. Most of the ministeriales of 
 Austria and Styria rose against him. Most of the 
 towns followed the ministeriales ; even Vienna deserted 
 its patron. The King of Bohemia invaded the land from 
 the north ; the Duke of Bavaria and the Bavarian 
 bishops invaded it from the west ; the Bishop of Bam- 
 berg and the Patriarch of Aqudeia fell upon Styria. Then 
 the emperor came over the mountains from Italy, taking- 
 castles, capturing the duke's wife, and the Austrians 
 and Styrians flocked to his court at Vienna. He freed 
 the Bishops of Freising and Passau from the duchy ; he 
 declared the two Austrian duchies to be immediate 
 dependencies of the empire ; ^ he declared Vienna to be 
 an imperial town ; he gave it a constitution, according 
 to which the town judge was to be appointed every 
 year by the emperor like the judges in the South- 
 Italian towns ; he confirmed and expanded the ancient 
 franchises of the ministeriales and the unfree knights of 
 Styria ; he confirmed and expanded monastic privileges ; 
 he took many of the most important monasteries under 
 his special protection ; he drew up a valuable list of 
 privileges for the Jews ; he probably stimulated the codi- 
 fication of the Austrian Landrecht, reasserting therein 
 the time-honoured barriers which fenced in the liberties 
 of the Austrian aristocracy. In one winter he had ex- 
 hibited in a most signal manner the omnipotence of his 
 ofiice. He had come, he had fought, he had conquered, 
 he had legislated. But then came the peripateia. The 
 emperor could only be a bird of passage. He could 
 assert a theory but he could not establish a practice. 
 He had never really conquered the country, for siege 
 
 1 Ckron. Regia Colon., 1237, p. 271. The best account is to be found in 
 the Continuatio Sanorvxensis Secunda, SS., ix., pp. 638-9, and in H.B., 
 vol. v., pp. 1-66. 
 
46 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 work was tedious, unfruitful, perilous to dignity. A 
 winter of feasting in Vienna, a few scrolls of parchment, 
 this was all that was apparently signified by the em- 
 peror's stupefying descent. It left no more permanent 
 imprint upon the country than does some eagle which 
 alights upon a Styrian rock. In 1239 the duke was 
 back again in fuU possession of his duchy and his rights. 
 He had starved the burghers of Vienna to submission 
 and reduced the imperial charters to waste paper, and 
 six years later the emperor is offering him a crown, 
 and the imperial chancery has actually prepared the 
 document, which is to give to Austria the dignity of a 
 kingdom and to the Austrian king the full power to 
 outlaw his nobles, his ministeriales, and his knights.^ 
 
 The Babenberg dynasty suddenly died out in 1246, 
 for Frederick had no male heir. It was a dynasty 
 of knights and pious founders, in the main very loyal 
 to the empire, but, notwithstanding, keeping on good 
 terms with the pope ; some of them bitten with the 
 crusading zeal, but all of them chiefly occupied in 
 obscure fights and purchases, in the reclaiming of 
 land, the deciding of disputes, the keeping of order. 
 
 It was apparently with grief that the Austrians 
 learnt the death of the last duke, for all his savage 
 ways. In beauty equal to Paris or Absalom, in courage 
 to Hector or Grideon, in wisdom to Solomon : such is 
 the strain of the flattering dirges composed in the 
 Austrian cloisters, which owed so much to the vanished 
 house.^ In the troubled times which succeeded the 
 disappearance of the last male Babenberger, it may 
 
 ^ Wurdtwein, Nova Subsidia Diploniatica, xii. Bohmer-Hcker, 3484. 
 2 Four poems on the occasion are given in SS. xi., pp. 50, 51. Some 
 of the verses are above the average : 
 
 " Austria diviciis omnibus fecunda 
 Sola jam in pulvere sedet gemebunda, 
 
CHAP, ix] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 47 
 
 have been tliat Frederick's faults were forgotten, and 
 the land only remembered that it had lost a line of 
 strong rulers. 
 
 Under these Babenberger dukes the march obtains 
 a special character of its own. It is still indeed part 
 of the empire. The dukes are expected to receive 
 investiture of the emperors, and to attend imperial 
 court-days. Appeals to the empire are recognized 
 even in the later version of Austrian Landrecht, which 
 belongs to the time of Ottocar. The count, the Free 
 Knight, the Dientsmann, can appeal to the Reich from 
 the Landesherr, and it is with the Reich also that the 
 ultimate decision on all feudal questions lies. The 
 emperor will intervene to decide a vexed question of 
 boundary, as Frederick Barbarossa decided the boundary 
 between the March and Bohemia in 1179, to fix the 
 relations between the duke and another prince of the 
 empire, as Frederick II. fixed the relations between 
 Leopold V. and the See of Passau. There were, too, 
 imperial fiefs in the march,^ and sometimes the em- 
 peror might descend upon the land, and legislate as 
 Frederick II. legislated, for the land looked up to 
 the emperor as its supreme lord, and when the last 
 Babenberg duke fell in a skirmish, the inhabitants 
 applied to the Wonder of the World to supply them 
 with a prince. 
 
 Yet these ties were weak and of increasing weakness, 
 and Henry III. was the last emperor who was much seen 
 
 Parvipendit Styria quelibet jocunda, 
 Quamvis in militibus nulli sit secimda. 
 
 " In diversa spargitur terre dominatus, 
 Propriis in sedibus regnat incolatus, 
 Agnus ovem devorat, lupus est beatus, 
 Cattis atque muribus par est principatus." 
 
 ' Meiller, Reg., p. 41. 44. 
 
48 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 in Austria. As the Bohemian forest becomes reclaimed, 
 as the borders on the north and the east become fixed, 
 the imperial donor, who had once been so lavish with 
 virgin forests, withdraws from the cartularies. 
 
 After 1156 we hear of Duke Frederick holding the 
 "Monarchy of Austria."^ Nor is this a mere empty 
 phrase. Tried by the most substantial tests, the duke 
 is a sovereign prince. He makes treaties with foreign 
 powers, as with Hungary in 1225,^ or with German 
 princes, as with the Bishop of Passau in 1240.^ He 
 negotiates ambitious marriage alliances with England, 
 with Constantinople, with the imperial family. He 
 enjoys large revenues, regulating as he does the brisk 
 trade of the Danube, taking toll of merchants at his 
 three toll-stations,* exacting marchfodder, selling or 
 letting fishing and mining rights, succeeding to the 
 goods of intestates, raising purveyance, living at free 
 quarters on his nobles, pocketing all the judicial 
 fines, plundering Jews.^ When the revenues of the 
 German princes came to be estimated, the Duke of 
 Austria stood equal second. He was as rich as the 
 Archbishop of Cologne and the Margrave of Bran- 
 denburg. He was more than twice as rich as the Duke 
 of Bavaria or the Archbishop of Salzburg ; more than 
 seven times as rich as the Archbishop of Mainz or the 
 Duke of Saxony ; more than ten times as rich as the 
 Archbishop of Bremen. He was inferior only to the 
 King of Bohemia." 
 
 ' Meiller, Rg., p. 77. 2. ^Meiller, Rg., p. 136. 200. 
 
 3 Meiller, Rg., p. 161. 58. < Meiller, Rg., p. 165. 76. 
 
 '5 Meiller, p. 83. 15 ; p. 161. 57 ; p. 89. 37 ; p. 59. 15 ; p. 94. 54 ; p. 104. 
 86 ; p. 133. 191 ; p. 158. 45; p. 179. 136. 
 
 ''Descriptio Thmtoniae, SS. xvii., p. 238. The King of Bohemia 
 is given a revenue of 150,000 marks. The Archbishop of Cologne and the 
 Margrave of Brandenburg 50,000, the Archbishop of Mainz 7000, etc. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 49 
 
 Then again his judicial authority is great and profit- 
 able.^ If the march was ever divided into counties, 
 then the margrave was count in each of the three 
 counties into which it was divided. He holds his pro- 
 vincial court or Lanteiding three times a year at 
 Mautern, at TuUn and at Neuberg respectively. He 
 tries in person all causes affecting the property, the 
 lives, or the honour of his nobles or freemen or minis- 
 teriales. He has three salaried provincial judges, to 
 whom he pays £300 each a year, who represent him 
 on the judgment seat, and who pay into his treasury 
 the penalties and compensations levied by their court. 
 He has inferior judges officiating in inferior courts, the 
 whole personnel appointed by and removable by himself. 
 It is true that there are immunities in Austria and 
 Styria, but these immunities affected in a diminishing 
 degree the jurisdictional rights of the duke. In the 
 first place clerks could not hear capital charges, and 
 the list of capital charges was in Austria and Styria 
 long, vague, elastic. In all grants to ecclesiastical 
 foundations these are reserved to the duke in person. 
 Capital offences go to the duke alone. ^ Again the 
 monasteries here as elsewhere are attempting to limit 
 the jurisdictional rights of their advocates. They are 
 saying to them, " You may try serious offences, homi- 
 cide, larceny, theft, rapine, arson, rape. You may try 
 anything which may come under the conception of a 
 breach of the peace. But you must go no further. Minor 
 eases must go to the abbot, the prior or the cellarer, 
 
 'For this, cf. Bruuner, "Das Gerichtliche Exemptionsrecht" {Sitzungs- 
 hericht d. Kais. Ahad., vol. xlvii.), and Hasenohrl, Oesterreiches Landrecht. 
 
 2Meiller, Reg., p. 89. 36 ; p. 79. 12 ; p. 103. 83 ; p. 129. 173 ; p. 134. 192; 
 p. 164. 72 ; p. 140. 220 ; p. 168. 90 ; p. 152. 19 ; p. 159. 50 ; p. 161. 56 ; 
 p. 171. 101 ; p. 172. 107. 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
50 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 or the proctor of the monastery."^ The monasteries, 
 in other words, are drawing up a rough list of graver 
 crimes, and at the same time they are petitioning the 
 duke against the oppressions of their advocates. The 
 duke is already from the first advocate of many monas- 
 teries, and in this capacity he or his agent exercises 
 criminal jurisdiction over the men of the monastery. 
 In other cases his intervention is sought and he inter- 
 venes. He takes a monastery under his special pro- 
 tection, he decrees that the proctors and the villeins 
 shall not plead except before his own agent.^ It is the 
 privilege of the Cistercian houses that they shall have 
 no advocate except the emperor. At the ducal court 
 at Mautern the question was gone into, and the court 
 awarded that the Cistercian houses could have no 
 advocate except the " Prince himself, who is the head 
 of the land in which they are situated."^ The award 
 sweeps all the Cistercian advocacies into the ducal 
 net. It almost implies that the duke is emperor in 
 Austria. 
 
 The duke in fact is a king all but in name. If the 
 life, honour or property of the count, the freeman, the 
 Dientsmann or the Landherr is concerned, the duke 
 himself does justice. In other cases he is represented 
 by the judge. His court is modelled on the imperial 
 court. He legislates with the counsel and consent of 
 the better men of the land.* The Jews are his Jews, the 
 Jews of his chamber. The villeins upon his domain 
 
 'Meiller, Reg., 163. 63. 
 
 'Meiller, 163. 63 ; p. 71. 56. 
 
 = Meiller, p. 100. 73 ; p. 165. 75 ; p. 66. 40. 
 
 ^By a law of Philip, 1205, the princes can only legislate. " Communi- 
 caute sibi meliorum terrae baronum et ministerialium consilio." Cf. 
 Forth., Ministeriales, p. 60 ; L.L., iv., p. 283 ; and Meiller, 78, 85, 88, 33, 
 97, 66, 101, 75, 113, 115, 131, 160. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 51 
 
 have a privileged position.^ He has wide tracts of 
 forests governed by salaried foresters. He has complete 
 control of the commerce of the land. He can forbid the 
 exportation and importation of corn and wine. He does 
 forbid the exportation of gold and silver. Although 
 theoretically his land is part of the empire, yet practi- 
 cally he treats it as a separate kingdom. If a 
 citizen of Vienna die intestate, and his heir be an 
 " extraneous," that is to say a non-Austrian, then his 
 heir must come and settle permanently in Austria. 
 Otherwise the property is escheat to the duke.^ So too 
 the law administered in the courts is the custom 
 of the land, " terrae nostrae consuetude."^ To deter- 
 mine the constituent elements of this custom, to 
 evaluate the importance attached to imperial laws or 
 decisions in Austrian courts with any degree of exacti- 
 tude would be a task exceeding the ingenuity even of 
 the German professor. It is clear, however, that there 
 would be no objection to receiving imperial edicts. 
 The first written draft of the Austrian law probably 
 dates from Frederick II. 's temporary occupation of 
 the land in 1236 and 1237.* It would seem that 
 it was composed at the instance of the Austrian 
 nobles who wished to shelter themselves behind the 
 trenches of custom from the tyrannous onslaughts of 
 their duke, and some of its clauses are based upon the 
 
 iThis is clear from Meiller, p. 139. 192. 
 
 2 Cf. " Oesterreichische Stadtrechte und Satzungen aus der Zeit der 
 Babenberger" {Archiv. f. Ost. GescL, x., pp. 148-159); Wiejier Stadtrecht, 
 1221 ; and Stadtrecht for Emis, 1212. 
 
 3 Meiller, Reg., p. 100. 75. 
 
 * Opinions have been much divided on this point. Peter von Ludevig 
 assigns it to 1190; SchmoUer not later than Leopold VI.; Senkenberg, 
 temp. Albert and Rudolph ; Eauch and Hormayer, Leopold VII. ; Wiirth, 
 Albert I. ; Eossler, 1295-8 ; Zopfl after 1328 ; Zieglauer, 1287-95 ; 
 Schroder, 1236, 1237. 
 
52 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 Mainz Landpeace of 1235. Since the Austrian, mar- 
 graves and dukes were almost consistently loyal to the 
 emperors, and by no means generally abstained from 
 attendance upon the imperial court, it is probable 
 that they were familiar with the principles upon which 
 imperial justice was conducted, and that this experience 
 would in some measure aifect the decisions given in the 
 Austrian provincial courts. But the greater part of the 
 custom of the land must have been a local growth upon 
 a Bavarian or Swabian basis.' It would grow partly out 
 of the accumulated decisions in the provincial courts, 
 partly out of the privileges accorded by ducal charter 
 to corporations or classes of men, partly out of ducal 
 edicts and acts of legislation. The custom of the land 
 was doubtless tolerably uniform, so far as concerned penal 
 law, though here and there towns like Vienna or Enns 
 would enjoy a privileged position. But in various other 
 respects the custom would differ from place to place. 
 In the mountains of Styria the ministeriales, origin- 
 ally unfree servants of a lord or corporation, had 
 conquered for themselves an exceptional status. They 
 could hand down their fiefs to daughters in the lack 
 of sons, could seU them or give them to other Styrians. 
 If they died intestate their inheritance could pass to 
 collaterals. They were exempt from trial by battle, and 
 their privileges were guaranteed by a written charter.^ 
 
 ^ There is evidence to prove that the Babenbergs originally lived 
 Swabian law. XJghelli Ital. Sacra., iv., 781 ; Meiller, p. 222, n. 197 ; 
 Mitt. d. Inst. Ost. Gesch., vi., pp. 385-388 ; and the Swahenspiegel had great 
 vogue in Austria. Thus it is one of the fountains of the Wie-ner Stadt- 
 rechthuch (Schroder, p. 665, n. 93). On the other hand most of the 
 settlers in the march were Bavarians. 
 
 2 Luschin in Beitrage z.Ji. Steir. Geschihtsq. vol. ix., p. 7, and Zallinger, 
 " Die Eitterlichen Klassen im Steirischen Landrecht " {Mitt. d. Inst. f. 
 Oest. Geschtsf., iv. 393-433). It seems possible from the Vita Altmanni 
 that there was a special custom affecting the heritability of fiefs in the 
 dioceses of Passau. 
 
CHAP. IX] EXPANSION OF S.E. GERMANY 53 
 
 The Flemings in Vienna, the traders from Eegensburg, 
 Cologne, Aix, and Ulm/ the Jews could bring written 
 evidence into court of ducal favour. The later Baben- 
 berg dukes too had legislated generously for Enns, for 
 Vienna, for Vienna Neustadt, for Hamburg.^ They had 
 created an independent body of town law, of Stadtrecht, 
 which embraced civil and criminal and constitutional 
 provisions, and which henceforth exempted the towns 
 from the Landrecht. It is impossible now to trace the 
 various influences which presided over these legislative 
 experiments. The most natural course would have been 
 either for the citizens of the town in quest of privileges 
 to have presented to the duke a draft scheme based 
 upon the practice of other cities, or else for the duke 
 and his advisers to have procured information about 
 municipal privileges in other parts of Germany, and to 
 have selected the provisions which they thought suitable. 
 There is some reason for thinking that the Austrian 
 town privileges were affected by Flemish usage, and 
 if this is the case it is possible that the town legislation 
 of the Babenbergs was based either upon the reminis- 
 cences of the Flemish settlers in Vienna or else upon 
 the copies of charters supplied by them to the legislative 
 advisers of the duke.^ 
 
 We have dwelt at length upon the history of the 
 Babenbergs, in order to illustrate clearly the extent 
 of the power of the emperors in the March and the 
 Duchy of Austria. The two powers which, in the 
 present century, disputed the hegemony of Germany, 
 were both of them formed during this period. Both 
 of them were marches, both of them colonies. The 
 
 1 Archie, f. Euiide Oest. Geschichtsq., vol. x., p. 92. 
 
 2 Archiv. f. Oest. Oesch., x., pp. 148-159. 
 =* Huber, i., p. 488. 
 
54 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [pt. i, ch. ix. 
 
 historical office of Brandenburg has been to stay the 
 advance of the Slave, the office of Austria to keep 
 first the Hungarian and then the Turk out of Wes- 
 tern Europe. The empire did nothing to assist the 
 formation of these states, and the conjunction of the 
 imperial crown at a later date with the Archduchy of 
 Austria and the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary 
 dissipated the attention and the energies of the Haps- 
 burgs. The brutality of the Germans, who extirpated 
 the Slaves in Brandenburg and Prussia, and the in- 
 viting simplicity of the great northern plain prepared 
 for the northern march an easier political destiny than 
 was possible amid the heterogeneous races and broken 
 geography of the Austrian dominions. Yet a series 
 of calamities, the dying out of the Ascanians and the 
 weakness of their successors, arrested the growth of 
 Brandenburg until the fifteenth century, while the 
 Duchy of Austria, after a brief Bohemian interregnum, 
 regained its lost position under Eudolph of Hapsburg, 
 and grew in power and prestige under the rule of his 
 dynasty. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CHUECH IN GEEMANY. 
 
 The downfall of the Medieval Empire lias been very 
 generally attributed to the action of the Church. 
 Now this appears at first sight to be one of those 
 rare statements which are at once simple and correct. 
 We see the empire engaged in a huge running conflict 
 with the papacy, which covers about a hundred and 
 eighty years. There are indeed breathing spaces 
 between these papal -imperial wars, and there are a 
 variety of issues involved, but in the main the 
 struggle is one struggle, and involves one issue — -was 
 the Church to be dependent on the empire or inde- 
 pendent of it ? And we find that in this struggle 
 the empire is beaten, and that all the causes for 
 which it fought, such as the control over the German 
 Church and the incorporation of Sicily in the empire, 
 are lost, and that one of the chief causes for which 
 the papacy fought, the foundation of a papal state 
 in Italy, is gained. Further, if we look more closely 
 into the details of the struggle, the same fact seems 
 to emerge everywhere. The opposition of the Church 
 appears to sap not only the political strength of the 
 monarchy, but the very theory upon which it was 
 built. Examine, for instance, the accounts given by 
 contemporary writers of the motives which led the 
 
56 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 princes to proceed to the momentous step of depos- 
 ing Henry IV., and of raising Rudolph, of Swabia to 
 the throne. " They said that he could not rule any 
 longer -nithout great loss to the Christian religion, 
 that he had been guilty of crimes which, if they 
 were judged by law ecclesiastical, would be regarded 
 as involving abdication of marriage, and of the belt 
 of knighthood, and of all enjoyment of the world, 
 how much more of a kingdom." "They had pledged 
 their faith to him by an oath, but only if he would 
 be king for the edification, not for the destruction, 
 of the Church of God." It is plain that men wanted 
 a religious sanction to back them before they could 
 reconcile it with their consciences to break the oath 
 of allegiance. Unless they had been able to find such 
 a sanction the princes would never have proceeded to 
 so extreme a step as the deposition of the king, and 
 they would hardly have found a sanction of sufficient 
 force unless the pope had actually absolved Henry's 
 subjects from their allegiance. As has been very 
 sensibly said by a German writer, "When Gregory 
 VII. cut the Gordian knot of difficulties and doubts 
 which surrounded the oath, he practically completed 
 the deposition." -^ Now the significance of such an 
 act as the deposition of a king does not depend upon 
 the qualities of the king himself A king may be 
 sensationally vicious or cruel or lazy or incompetent, 
 but it does not foUow that his deposition will have 
 far-reaching consequences. It will be more beneficial 
 than the extinction of an ordinary criminal, but it 
 may not differ in kind from any one of the acts by 
 which society protects itself against the vagaries of a 
 
 1 Victor Domeyer, Die Pclbste ah Richter, p. 18 ; Gierke, Untersuchungen, 
 vol. liii. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 57 
 
 lunatic, or the fraud of the company-promoter, or the 
 violence of the cut-throat. The real significance of a 
 deposition depends, not so much upon the character 
 of the person deposed, as upon the character of the 
 forces which depose him. If the deposition of a sove- 
 reign indicates a change in the intellectual atmosphere, 
 if it is an extraordinary act accomplished by extra- 
 ordinary machinery, worked by extraordinary passions, 
 and in defiance of great obstacles, then it is important. 
 It sets one of those political precedents which stamps 
 an idea into many generations of ordinary men. Now 
 the deposition of Henry IV. was important just for 
 this reason. It did not affect the permanence of the 
 Salian dynasty, for Henr}'' was deposed and succeeded 
 by his own son. It did not, so far as we can see, 
 alter the material resources at the disposition of the 
 monarchy. It did not immediately create any new con- 
 stitutional machinery whatever. But it marked in a 
 very significant way the partial triumph of a new idea 
 about the basis of sovereignty. It asserted the idea 
 that sovereignty was based upon contract, that if the 
 king broke his oath to his people, his people were 
 absolved from their oath to- him. Against the view 
 that the king was the irresponsible vicegerent of God 
 upon the earth, it asserted the view that the king 
 was a responsible agent, who could be deposed for 
 ignoring his responsibilities. A large pamphlet litera- 
 ture which has now been published in three volumes 
 of the Monumenta Germaniae was produced in Ger- 
 man and Italian monasteries to support this theory, 
 which has been the political theory of the papacy 
 ever since, which was destined to fill the minds 
 of Bellarmine, Mariana and Suarez, and to direct or 
 stifle the consciences of the men who aimed at the 
 
58 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 murder of Queen Elizabeth, and who accomplished 
 the murder of William the Silent and of Henry III. 
 of France. 
 
 We must not assign too much importance to pam- 
 phlets. They seldom convert people, unless they become 
 the programme of an organization. But it was the 
 peculiar fortune of these pamphlets that not only did 
 they become the programme of an organization, which 
 was in relation to other organizations existing at the 
 same time with itself, one of the most powerful known 
 to history, but that the doctrine expressed in them was 
 intimately associated with the interests and prerogatives 
 of a strong aristocracy. They lay down the theoretical 
 basis of the political programme of the Catholic Church. 
 They safeguard the electoral rights of the German 
 princes. 
 
 And hence this idea of sovereignty slowly gets hold 
 of the German mind. It had indeed many obstacles 
 to conquer. The Germans were proud of their emperor 
 as well they might be, and when Alexander III. ex- 
 communicated and deposed Frederick Barbarossa, the 
 thunders of the Vatican hardly evoked an echo north 
 of the Alps. Again, of all medieval churches, the German 
 Church was least ultramontane in temper and habit 
 of mind, and most closely associated with the fortunes 
 of the monarchy. But the idea made its way for all that. 
 If we read the Saclisenspiegel which was antipapal, 
 so much so indeed that many of its provisions were 
 subsequently condemned by the pope, we find that 
 "no one can be king who is under the ban of the Church, 
 and the ban of the Church may be lawfully imposed 
 if the emperor break his promise or abandon his lawful 
 wife, or destroy God's house." Now if the Saclisenspiegel 
 says this, it is clear that the doctrine of the contract 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 59 
 
 lias made a very considerable impression upon men's 
 minds. The Sachsenspiegel is not stating the papal 
 claims as the papalists would have stated them. It is 
 restating the limits within which patriotic Germans 
 were willing to admit those claims. As a writer upon 
 the deposition of Otto IV. puts it, " The emperor can 
 only be excommunicated for three causes: Desertion 
 of his wife, diminution of imperial honour, heresy."^ 
 
 Again, if we turn from the history of political theory 
 to the history of political fact, the influence of the 
 Church in procuring the destruction of the empire seems 
 to outweigh any other influence. It was Alexander III. 
 who encouraged the Lombard towns to assert and defend 
 their independence ; it was the resistance of the Lombard 
 towns which led to the Peace of Venice and to the 
 Peace of Constance — the Peace of Venice which adver- 
 tised the humiliation of the empire before the most 
 brilliant diplomatic congress which had yet met in 
 Europe, and the Peace of Constance which practically 
 guaranteed the substantial autonomy of the Lombard 
 League. So too on the death of Henry VI., who had 
 come nearer to forming a united Italy than any sovereign 
 since the days of Berengar of Friuli, the papacy profits 
 by the occasion of the minority permanently to weaken 
 the hold of the Hohenstauffen both in Germany and in 
 Italy, so that if Gregory VII. may be called the true 
 heir of Henry III., Innocent III. may with still greater 
 justice be called the true heir of Henry VI. The pope 
 reconquers the patrimony of St. Peter, drives the 
 imperialists from Ancona and Spoleto, and the Matildine 
 lands, and founds that papal state which had long 
 existed in writing both forged and genuine, but which 
 
 '"Disp. carm. conscript, inter Romam et Papam de Ottonis IV. desti- 
 tutioue," Leibnitz, Rer. Bruns., SS. ii. 530. 
 
6o THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 had never yet enjoyed more than a fragmentary, inter- 
 mittent, and contested existence in the world of fact. 
 He is regent in Sicily for the young Frederick II. , 
 and contemplates in the Sicilian kingdom the pro- 
 spect of a subject state ruled by a dynasty more 
 docile than the Normans. He intervenes decisively in 
 German affairs. When some of the princes elect Philip 
 of Swabia, the brother of the late emperor, who had 
 
 , been put under the ban of the Church for his vigorous 
 measures in Tuscany, Innocent sets aside the election. 
 He decides for Otto, who represents North Germany 
 and the trade interests of Cologne, and the dynastic 
 
 ' pretensions of the Welfic House. Then when it is 
 clear that Otto is too true to the imperialist tradition 
 to abandon Italy and Sicily to the pope. Innocent turns 
 round against him. He absolves the princes and barons 
 and ministeriales of the empire from their oath to the 
 young emperor. He sends Frederick II. his Sicilian 
 protege to contest with him the devotion of the 
 German princes. He stirs up the King of France 
 against Otto, who is the nephew of the King of England 
 and supported by English gold, and so he helps to ruin 
 in 1212 the emperor whose coronation he had helped to 
 secure in 1204. Then again, disposing as he does of the 
 empire, he is able to extract terms from the candidates ; 
 the recognition of the papal state, the abandonment of 
 the right of spoils, the recognition of papal appeals, the 
 abandonment of the incorporation of Sicily and the 
 empire, the abandonment of the right of enjoying 
 ecclesiastical revenues during a vacancy. 
 
 Further, to buy the support of the German Church 
 Frederick II. has to throw away, one after another, the 
 most precious prerogatives of the crown, and to abandon 
 the towns, which are in the first decades of the thirteenth 
 
CHAP, xj THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 6i 
 
 century waging active war against their bishops, and 
 who might have given him a measure of help in 
 Germany which would have secured the continuance 
 of the Swabian dynasty. Then, again, Frederick's 
 scheme for the consolidation of Italy and Sicily is 
 ruined by the alliance of the papacy with the Lombard 
 cities. The emperor is kept fighting in the Lombard 
 plain and in central Italy, when his heart is set upon 
 making the " regno " a model for all Europe to 
 emulate. The most gifted administrator of the iliddle 
 Ages, with an incomparable grasp of detail, a passion- 
 ate enthusiasm for civilization, a wide intellectual 
 curiosity, a singular detachment from all superstitions 
 except astrology, and a consuming thirst for work, 
 is wasted upon a continuous war of sieges and 
 skirmishes in central and northern Italy, which take 
 the heart out of him, and steep his temper in a 
 kind of bitter extravagance.^ Then the emperor is, 
 in 1245, formally deposed by the pope at a Council 
 of Lyons, and, while he still maintains the struggle, 
 aided by all the outcasts and desperadoes of Italy, a 
 succession of counter kings are elected in Germany, 
 whose shadowy half-acknowledged authority only assists 
 the growth of the German principalities. Then, finally, 
 the whole family of tLe HohenstauflFen is rooted out from 
 Italy. The papal Curia, after sixteen years of almost 
 unexampled duplicity, destroys the brave and accom- 
 plished Manfred, the bastard son of the great Frederick, 
 by the aid of the French in 1266, and with Manfred's/ 
 death the last hope of Italian unity vanishes for many 
 
 1 Salimbene, Chrmi. Farm., p. 68, " Igitur cum Fridericus imperator 
 esset depositus ab imperio ab Innocentio Papa Quarto erat amaro auimo 
 veluti si ursa raptis catulis in saltu saeviat. Et convenerunt ad eum 
 omnes qui eraut in angustiis constituti et oppressi aere alieno et amaro 
 animo et faotus est princeps eorum." 
 
62 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 centuries. The papacy whicli wrecked the Lombard 
 monarchy in the eighth century by invoking the Frank, 
 wrecks the HohenstaufFen monarchy in the thirteenth 
 century by an appeal to the same quarter. As Stephen 
 invoked Pippin against Aistulf, and Innocent III. in- 
 voked Walter of Brienne against the officers of Henry 
 VI., so Alexander IV. and Urban IV. invoke Charles of 
 Anjou against Manfred. 
 
 The appeal was heard. The Frenchman came down 
 with a strong force ; he got himself elected senator of 
 Eome ; he defeated Manfred at the battle of Benevento, 
 and four years later crushing Conradin, the boy grand- 
 son of the great Frederick, at Tagliacozzo, he estab- 
 lished a tyranny in southern Italy. But the spirit 
 which had arisen to the invocation could not be so 
 easily laid. As the popes of the eighth century had 
 to bow the neck to Charles the Great, so the popes 
 of the thirteenth century had to bow the neck to 
 Philip le Bel. The papacy had guided a long train 
 of events from the death of Henry III. in 1056 to 
 the death of Conradin in 1268. The chain led to the 
 conquest of the empire, but it led to something else as 
 well. It led by a necessary sequence to the degradation 
 I of the papacy in the eyes of Europe and to its humilia- 
 ' tion before the strong French monarchy, which had 
 inherited the claims and aspirations of the Carolingians.^ 
 Yet a bare recital of these facts suggests a limitation to 
 the extent of the papal influence in securing the down 
 fall of the Medieval Empire. The scene of the later and 
 
 ' When Innocent III. invoked Walter of Brienne the Abbot Joachim of 
 Flora saw the full significance of the act. " A'ideat Romanum capitulum si 
 non fiat eis arundineiis bacillus potentia Gallicana, cui si quis innititur per- 
 foratmanus ejus....Alamannoruni enim Imperium quasi stimulum Francia 
 sentiet, adeo ut, si recalcitret Tulnera in ecclesiae subventionem reponet" 
 {In Jeremiam Interpretation c. 2, ed. 1577, p. 46). 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 63 
 
 most decisive stages of the conflict was Italy, where the 
 popes could rely upon the strong Lombard towns, upon 
 the Franciscan order, upon the traditional dislike of 
 German brutality among the Italian populace, where 
 they could and did appeal to a nascent Italian political 
 sentiment. But what was the real influence of the 
 Curia in Germany? How far was it able to detach the 
 German clergy from the imperial cause and to penetrate 
 it with cosmopolitan theological sentiment ? To what 
 extent was the victory of the popes over the Hohen- 
 stauffen due to the alliance of the Church in Germany % 
 
 We shall attempt here to explain the ways in j 
 which the emperors controlled and utilized the Church/ 
 machinery ; to describe the composition and the intel-,' 
 lectual and moral character of the German Church 
 which was thus worked into the imperial system ; and, 
 finally, to trace the attitude of the Church leaders in 
 Germany towards the popes on the one hand and the 
 emperors on the other. 
 
 When the first seeds of the Catholic Church were sown 
 in Germany, Boniface the first sower consecrated the crop 
 to the service of the Church of Eome. The oath of obed- 
 ience which he took to the Roman see was most ample 
 and unreserved, but the dream of the missionary was far 
 from immediate fulfilment. The German mission of the 
 eighth century was very unlike any mission carried on b)' 
 the Catholic Church at the present day among disheart- 
 ened aborigines or placid and contemptuous Chinese. 
 The patients were barbarous, rude and vigorous, ex-- 
 tremely resentful of discipline and disinclined to the 
 payment of tithe or tax. The Church was not assisted 
 by the many subtle agents of demoralization which 
 accompany the white missionary into Africa and sap 
 the strength of the heathen. It was not backed by the 
 
64 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 Maxim gun. The mission was at once more diflBcult and 
 more promising; more difficult because the peoples were 
 fresh and vigorous and the material resources of the 
 Church more slender, more promising because the bars 
 of race and culture and clime were infinitely slighter 
 and more fragile. The consequence of this was that 
 
 1 the Church was at every turn dependent on the State. 
 The words of the English and Irish missionaries had to 
 be supported by the arms of the Franks, and the popes 
 of Eome were unable to do more than to encourage or 
 direct. From the time of Clovis onwards the Church 
 looked to the Frankish monarchy to protect and promote 
 its interests. 
 
 There was another fact which tended in the same 
 direction. It was, as we have already said, the fashion 
 of the eighth and of succeeding centuries to make 
 large grants of land to the Church, and of all in- 
 vestments this seemed the most profitable, whether the 
 contemplated reward was to be reaped in time or in 
 eternity. Charles the Great complained that in his day 
 gifts to the Church were so frequent that men were 
 thereby reduced to poverty and compelled to take to a 
 life of crime.-' In 817 Lewis the Pious was obliged to 
 legislate to prevent clerks from taking gifts, which might 
 disinherit the children or near relations of the giver, 
 and the enactment was re-enacted by Lewis II. in 875.' 
 Nothing however is more vain than to legislate against 
 timidity, especially when all the forces of culture are in- 
 culcating fear. The emperors themselves were the great- 
 est offenders. The donations of Charles the Great, Lewis 
 the Pious, and Lewis the German were lavish, and it was 
 not until the beginning of the tenth century that any 
 
 Y check was placed to this stream of beneficence. But the 
 
 1 Boretius, p. 163. "^ Ih., p. 277. 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 65 
 
 Saxous reverted to the ancient ways. These four pious 
 emperors pile donation upon donation. Whereas we 
 have forty-two charters of donation proceeding from 
 Lewis the German and thirty-seven from Arnulf, we have 
 one hundred and fifty-two from Otto the Great. Again, 
 the grants of market rights and toll-rights made during 
 this one reign to ecclesiastical foundations exceed all the 
 grants taken together made by Otto's predecessors.^ The 
 munificence of the Saxon emperors builds up the terri- 
 tories of the great Rhenish sees, creates the archiepiscopal 
 see of ]\[agdeburg, invests the Bishop of Wurzburg with 
 ducal powers, creates the new see of Bamberg, endows 
 and founds numerous Saxon abbeys and nunneries, and 
 heaps political and judicial powers upon ecclesiastical 
 foundations. It would probably be unfair to the mem- 
 ory of these sovereigns to refer their donations merely 
 to spiritual insecurity. As the Church required aid of, 
 the civil power, the civil power required aid of the Church.' 
 The state demanded cultured and docile human instru- 
 ments, and the Church alone could supply them. The 
 state required a fund out of which to salary and reward 
 its servants, the benefices of the Church alone consti- 
 tuted such a fund. The state required agents who would 
 not found formidable families and create hereditary 
 interests. Such agents were alone to be found within 
 the Church. The king desired the development of 
 his estates, and no bailifi' was so good as the capable 
 abbot. Charles the Great, who saw so many things, 
 saw these things. He made large use of the Church as 
 
 ' Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, vol. iii., pp. 57-9. For calcula- 
 tions as to the extent of clerical wealth at the end of the Carolingian 
 period, cf. Waitz, D.V.O., vii., p. 186; Inama-Sternegg, Wirthschaftsffe- 
 sckickte, i., p. 291 ; Grossgnindherrschaft, p. 32 ; Lamprecht, Deutsches 
 Wirthschaftsleben, i. 703. For a specimen of an ecclesiastical estate, see 
 the beautiful map of the estates of Priim (Lamprecht, D. IT., vol. ii.). 
 VOL. II. E 
 
66 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 an instrument of government, perceiving that in the 
 protracted agony of the Merovingian age the bishops 
 had actually governed the French cities, and his 
 example was followed by Otto I. 
 
 So, too, the real control of episcopal elections lay 
 always with the emperor. The chapter and the people 
 made a manifestation of sj^mpathy ; they proceeded 
 either before or after the royal will had been expressed 
 
 I to a formal election, but the emperor really nominated. 
 It was no new practice. The Merovingian kings had 
 entirely disregarded the freedom of capitular and 
 popular elections. Charles the Great had allowed elec- 
 tions to be free, but had exacted royal confirmation, 
 and the arrangement was confirmed by his successor 
 Lewis in 816. But even Lewis frequently violated the 
 concordat, and the later Carolings always secured the 
 appointment of their nominees. There were only a 
 few specially privileged churches which maintained 
 their old electoral liberties. Otto and his successors 
 stood in the old ways. When the representatives of 
 the people and chapter came to the court with the 
 stafi" of the deceased bishop, the king would give it to 
 his nominee with the words, " Accipe Ecclesiam," 
 " Eeceive the Church." Nor did any fine distinction lurk 
 beneath the phrase. The German king was not merely 
 conferring land and buildings, but a high spiritual and 
 political office. 
 
 ^ This led straight to simony. It was an old German 
 custom that no one should appear before the king 
 without a gift. As early as the first quarter of the 
 sixth century the clerks of Auvergne come to the king 
 with gifts of money to obtain the election of St. Gall, 
 and Gregory of Tours remarks upon the origin of that 
 brisk trafiic in benefices, which, like the astrologers in 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 67 
 
 Eome, was so often forbidden and so continuously 
 retained. The practice, which was protested against 
 by Gregory the Great [590-610] and by the council 
 of Toledo in 633, was formally renounced by Pippin 
 in 755, and it is to the lasting honour of Charles the 
 Great that during his reign no bishopric was bought 
 or sold. But with the death of Lewis the Pious this 
 scrupulosity vanished. The later Carolings succumbed 
 to temptation, and in 877 Hincmar of Rheims com- 
 plained, possibly with some slight exaggeration, that 
 hardly any one could obtain any honour or preferment 
 without paying a price. The Saxons were far above 
 the average of their time in piety, and resolution, and 
 intellectual endowments. Yet although Henry the 
 Fowler is said to have promised to abandon simony, 
 if he should succeed in vanquishing the Hungarians, 
 it is clear that the promise was not observed. 
 
 The reports of the synod of Ingelheim [998] and the 
 chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg show us that the Ottos 
 were not immaculate. Conrad the Salic professed virtue, 
 but lapsed from his professions, and of all the German 
 emperors since Lewis the Pious, Henry III. alone seems 
 to stand quit of the common accusation.^ It was no 
 part of Henry's scheme to relinquish his control over 
 ecclesiastical nominations,^ but his pure and enthusiastic 
 nature revolted against a traffic which his clerical ad- 
 visers pronounced to be sinful. In Italy and Germany 
 he waged war resolutely against the prevailing vice, 
 which, according to Desiderius of Monte Cassino, had 
 left scarcely a man uncorrupted with its contagion.^ In 
 
 1 Wipo, Vita C'uon., c. 8, "In omni vita sua pro omnibus dignitatibus 
 ecclesiasticia unius oboli preciuni nou dicitur adhuc acoepisse " 
 
 = SS. iv. 85. 
 
 2 Mnbillon, Ada, SS. ; Ord. S. Ben. Saec, iv., p. ii., p. 451. 
 
6S THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 1046 lie summoned a synod at Pavia, and addressed 
 them in the following words : "It is with grief that I 
 speak to you, for as Christ of his own grace and good- 
 ness consented to come to redeem us, so he gave orders 
 to his own ' Ye have received of grace, give of grace.' 
 For you, corrupted by avarice and cupidity, who ought 
 to confer blessing, by transgressing thus in your giving 
 and in your receiving are cursed according to the canon. 
 My father exercised overmuch the same damnable 
 avarice during his lifetime. Verily, I fear for the peril 
 of his soul. Whosoever among you then is conscious 
 of being contaminated by this blot must be removed from 
 the sacred ministry according to the disposition of the 
 canons." The bishops were stupefied, knew not what tO' 
 answer, and finally threw themselves upon the mercy of 
 the king. Henry consoled them in the following words : 
 " Go," he said, " and strive to spend well what you have 
 received unlawfully, and remember to intercede the more 
 zealously for the soul of my father who, together with 
 you, is fou.nd in this fault." Then he issued an edict 
 for the whole of the empire that no clerical rank or 
 ministry should be acquired by money. If any person 
 4hould presume to give or receive money for such a 
 purpose, he should be deprived of all ofhce, and visited 
 with excommunication.^ The decrees of Pavia were 
 brought home to the world by the deposition of three 
 popes, and by the appointment to the papal see of a 
 series of men who at last cleansed the Aiigean stable of 
 Eoman ecclesiastical politics, and restored the prestige of 
 the Curia. The emperor who in 1046 received from the 
 Roman people the dignity of patrician, which was 
 supposed to carry with it the first and decisive voice 
 
 1 Rod. Glob., p. 5, SS. vii., p. 71 ; of. Steindorff, Heinrich III., pp. 309,. 
 311 ; No. 2., 897, and Giesebrecht, ii. 5, 659. 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 69 
 
 in papal elections, used his privilege to enthrone the 
 extreme ecclesiastical doctrine of the Cluniac puritans 
 in the chair which had been sullied by so many crimes 
 of lust and violence. In so doing he prepared the way 
 for the independence of the papacy. The popes hence- 
 forward recover the leadership of the Catholic Church 
 which had fallen to the Ottos, which had been shared 
 between Henry II. and Benedict VIII., and which had 
 been exercised so enthusiastically and forcibly by 
 Henry III. 
 
 Henry cleansed Eome and revived the papacy, but 
 he could not bind his successors. The spiritual advisers 
 of Henry IV. threw the decrees of Pavia to the wduds, 
 and the War of the Investitures illustrates nothing so, 
 clearly as the reluctance of the German Church to) 
 consent to reform.-^ When the war closed with the 
 concordat of Worms in 1122, it seemed as if the 
 honours of the struggle were divided. Free canonical 
 election and free consecration were granted to all the 
 churches within the kingdom or the empire. The 
 investiture by ring and staff was handed over to the 
 spiritual authority. On the other hand, it was con- 
 ceded that the elected person should receive his regalia 
 by the sceptre from the emperor, and should do homage 
 to the emperor ; that elections of such bishops and 
 abbots in the German kingdom as held their regalia 
 direct of the emperor should be conducted in the 
 emperor's presence without simony or any violence, 
 so that if any discord should arise, the emperor 
 might support the saner party with the counsel of the 
 
 1 For Henry IV.'s attitude, cf. Ebbo, Vita Ottonis, c. 7, 8 (SS. xii., 
 pp. 827-8), " Quantum profectui et houori aecclesiae Babenbergeusis cou- 
 gratuler, hinc advertite, quod cum tot magna et alti sanguinis person e 
 episcopatum hune a me precio comparare temptarent, ego ilium potius 
 ... vobis eligere malui." 
 
70 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 metropolitan and the bishops of the province.^ It is 
 said that these terms were subsequently changed to the 
 advantage of the Church by Lothair ; that he promised 
 to give up the right of being present at elections ; that 
 he consented to allow consecration to precede temporal 
 investiture, and contented himself with the looser bond 
 of fealty instead of the stricter bond of homage. The 
 statement is only contained in one narrative, and its 
 correctness has been suspected^; but whether Lothair 
 made the promise or not, nothing is clearer than that 
 both the concordat of Worms and the engagement of 
 Lothair were from the beginning treated by the emperor 
 with supreme contempt. We know that Lothair him- 
 self, that Frederick L, and that Philip of Swabia were 
 present at elections ; that Courad IIL and Frederick I. 
 were invested with the temporals before consecration ; 
 and that both emperors and patrons unblushingly 
 
 [trafficked in ecclesiastical patronage,^ and as few 
 elections passed without a dispute in the chapter, the 
 emperor almost always appointed as he chose. 
 
 At the very beginning of his reign Barbarossa tried a 
 fall with the papacy and won. Exercising pressure upon 
 part of the chapter of Magdeburg, the emperor caused 
 the election of his friend Bishop Wichmann of Zeitz. 
 It had been apparently held by Gregory VII., and it was 
 common doctrine in the Church, that translations from 
 one see to another could only be accomplished throiigh 
 the medium of the pope, and two popes, Eugenius III. 
 and Anastasius lA^. protested that the election was con- 
 trary to the canons. But Wichmann travelled to Eome, 
 supported in his candidature by the recommendations of 
 
 /the German prelates. The timid Anastasius fled from 
 
 ^ Weilaud, i., No. 107, 108. - Narratio de Electione Lotharii. 
 
 •• Bertold, Entvickelung der Landeshoheit, p. 59. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 71 
 
 Rome to salve his conscience, leaving, however, the 
 pallium upon the altar.^ The bishop hesitated to take it 
 in the absence of the pontiflf, but his attendants were 
 troubled with no such scruples. They picked up the 
 pall, and Wichmann returned to Germany a complete 
 archbishop. From that moment Barbarossa's control 0^ 
 the Church was complete. He nominated laymen to 
 important sees ^ ; he utilized two archbishops, Eainald of 
 Cologne and Christian of Mainz to fight his battles in 
 Italy, and to go upon diplomatic missions. He gave to 
 Henry the Lion, the right of investiture to Oldenburg, 
 Mecklenburg and Ratzeburg, and to all Slavonic bishop- 
 rics which might be founded in the future. He dispensed 
 similar rights over the sees of Lausanne, Geneva, and 
 Sitten to Bertold IV. of Zahringen, and such was the 
 prestige of Barbarossa that some chapters, recognizing 
 that their electoral rights had been whittled away to a 
 formality, voluntarily surrendered them to the emperor. 
 
 Henry VI. was equally firm and equally corrupt. 
 He sold the bishoprics of Cambrai and Lidge. He 
 appointed his vice-chancellor, Henry of Maastricht, to 
 Worms, and when a bishop protested that he held his 
 office not from the emperor but the pope, the pale 
 electric little Swabian ordered his attendants there and/ 
 then to beat him and to pluck out the hairs of his 
 beard. ^ 
 
 Habits of long standing are not easily uprooted, and 
 the old practice of simony and imperial control survived 
 
 1 Otton. Fris., Oeita Frid., ii. 6 ; Dictatus Oreg., vii., ed. Jaflfe, Bihl, ii., 
 p. 175. 
 
 '^Chron. Reg. Col., 1149, "Interea legati Coloniensium Italiam venerunt 
 domnum Reinoldum cancellarium sibi in poiitifieem deposcunt. Gavisus 
 ergo imperator quod locum honoris deferendi ei invenisset, grato animo 
 Coloniensem episcopatutn et quae sui juris erant tradidit." 
 
 3 Innocent III., Reg. de Kegot. Imp., ep. 29.; Migne Patr. Lat, vol. 216 
 col. 1029. 
 
72 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 the renunciations of Philip of Swabia, of Otto IV., and 
 of Frederick 11. It is clear that Frederick II. demanded 
 ^investiture before consecration.^ The Sachsenspiegel 
 holds to the old law,"^ and even the Scliivabenspiegel, 
 which was papalist, admits that no bishop, abbot, or 
 abbess can dispose of a fief until the king has conferred 
 upon them the regalia.^ The emperors did not only 
 appoint the leaders of the ecclesiastical army. They 
 ( freely helped themselves to the war chest. The 
 property of the see was held to be conferred by 
 royal investiture, and the consent of the empire was 
 required before it could be lawfully alienated.* During 
 a vacancy, which it was within the power of the king 
 to prolong, he disposed of the diocesan revenues. But 
 he was not content with this. There was an old and 
 barbarous practice, which yet was not without a justi- 
 fication, of despoiling the house of a deceased bishop. 
 Bishops and priests, it was argued, were made to serve 
 spiritual ends ; it would be intolerable if they were 
 allowed to build up and to bequeath private fortunes : 
 and the most effective steps to prevent the perversion of 
 a spiritual office was that a hungry crowd should invade 
 the bishop's house before the corpse was cold and carry 
 off every shred of the furniture. The premise was pious, 
 but the conclusion was indecent. The procedure, which 
 had originally been patronized by clerks, spread to the 
 laity, who may be excused for forgetting its original 
 justification. Yet there is no evidence that any German 
 
 ^ Sententia de Regalibus non infeodandis (Weilaiid, ii., No. 212). 
 
 = &/)., iii. 59. 1. \Swsp., 110, set. ,3. 
 
 'Weiland, vol. i., Nos. 148, 328, 336; vol. ii., Nos. 187, 227, 282, 289. 
 As Henry II. sensibly remarks, "Oportet ut in aecclesiis multae sint 
 facultates ... quia cui plus coramittitur, plus ab eo exigitur. Multa enim 
 debet (Fulda) dare servitia et romanae et regali curiae propter quod 
 scriptum est : Reddite quae sunt Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei 
 Deo." 
 
•CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 73 
 
 emperor exercised the right of spoils before Frederick 
 Barbarossa.^ Frederick may have reflected that the con- 
 tinuance of the imperial government depended upon the 
 control of the ecclesiastical princes. The lay princes had ^ 
 become hereditary, and practically independent. If the I 
 ecclesiastical princes, who wei^e so much more numerous / 
 followed their example, the power of the emperor wouloi 
 be reduced to a phantom. So Frederick determined to 
 •emphasize the diff"erence between the fiefs of the lay and 
 the ecclesiastical j)rinces. But at the same time he was 
 willing to offer a compensation. In defiance of the 
 customary law of Worms he decided, relying upon 
 Roman j)recedent, that the clerks might have testa- 
 mentary rights. In other words, he jji'ohibits the 
 exercise of the right of spoils against the lower clergy. 
 He reserves its exercise against the bishops. The jus 
 spolii is to be an imperial right, limited both as to the / 
 person who was entitled to use it, and as to the persons 
 against whom it was to be used. 
 
 Vain precautions ! How could the emperor, making 
 in his own person so many signal manifestoes of 
 rapacity, hope to restrain the greed of his subjects by 
 a quotation from the Latin laws of his "sacred" pre- 
 decessors ? The jus spolii was exercised by patrons and 
 by ministeriales despite the denunciations of councils 
 till the end of the fifteenth century. The Church indeed 
 often exacted a promise to abjure the practice. Otto 
 IV., Philip of Swabia, Frederick II. all surrendered the 
 
 ^ Frederick seems to speak of it as an old custom. Cf. Lacomblet, Urkb., 
 i. 417, "Cum itaque constet et ex antique jure regum et imperatorum 
 atque ex cotidiana consuetudine manifestum est quod episcopis in imperio 
 nostro constitutis ab hac vita decedentibus episcopales redditus et bona 
 deputata usibus eorum, annona videlicet et vinum, et cetera hujusmodi 
 victualia seu servitia . . . fisco regali universe jure debeant applicari." 
 The words, though they may cover the jus spolii, seem chiefly to refer to 
 the right of enjoying the regalia during a vacancy. 
 
74 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 jus spolii, but the value of this surrender is sufficiently 
 attested by the fact that Frederick II. subsequent to all 
 these renunciations granted an exemption from the right 
 by way of special privilege to the Archbishop of Taren- 
 taise in 1226, and to the Bishop of Hildesheim in 1228, 
 that even small princes, such as the Counts of Henneburg, 
 Hohenlohe, and Nassau exercised it with the utmost 
 freedom. Few things did more to alienate the German 
 Church from the empire than this iU-judged application 
 of a most vexatious practice to archiepiscopal and epis- 
 copal sees by Frederick Barbarossa. 
 • This was not all. Not only does the emperor appoint 
 the bishops and archbishops, take the fruits of the see 
 during vacancies, pillage the episcopal palace, compel 
 ' his prelates to follow him to Italy to attend his councils, 
 ito go his errands to Rome, Constantinople, Rouen,^ 
 London, to provide men-at-arms, and to lead his armies, 
 but he also becomes their feudatory. He condescends 
 to accept, he even extorts, ecclesiastical fiefs from the 
 prelates who receive their regalia from him. Now, this 
 was not in accordance with the strictest conceptions of 
 German feudal law. There was a time when men 
 believed that if a lord held a fief of his feudal peer or 
 of his feudal inferior, he lowered his Heerschild, and 
 sank in the feudal scale. This, too, is the general 
 doctrine in the thirteenth century, but it is qualified 
 by one exception. The king may be the man of an 
 ecclesiastical prince. Now the lawyers do not attempt 
 to give a reason for this exception. They cannot say 
 why the king may be the man of an ecclesiastical prince 
 but not of a lay prince. The symmetry of their feudal 
 hierarchy is spoiled, but they accept the fact and sup- 
 press apologies. The truth is that the king found the 
 ecclesiastical fiefs too tempting to be resisted. There 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 75 
 
 seems, indeed, to be evidence that for a time appear- 
 ances were saved. Lothair and Conrad III. transferred 
 their inherited fiefs as soon as possible to their heirs, 
 but then all disguise was thrown off. Frederick I., 
 who tries to build up in Swabia and Franconia a royal 
 domain, such as his predecessors had tried to build up in 
 Saxony, keeps his ecclesiastical fiefs after his accession 
 to the throne, steadily acquires others, and, though 
 apparently avoiding the ceremony of homage, receives 
 investiture openly of the bishops. If Henry VI. had 
 lived to a ripe old age and left a full-grown successor, 
 the hold of the Hohenstaufi'en family upon the property 
 of the Church might have become too strong even to be 
 shaken ofi". The princes of the church saw this. Many 
 of their fiefs had been seized against their will, and/ 
 they had grown restive under the hand of these power-' 
 ful vassals. Here and there a tninisterialis of a see, 
 waxen powerful and ambitious, had built a castle, and 
 bought imperial acquiescence by surrendering it to the 
 emperor and holding it of him as a fief^ And so 
 during the struggle between Philip and Otto the pre-/ 
 lates make a resolute effort to liberate themselves. We 
 see how Philip, in 1199, has to renounce the fiefs which 
 his father and brother had held of Strassburg ; how, in 
 1201, he renounces the fiefs which he himself held of 
 Wurzburg. When Frederick II. comes to Germany 
 and has to beg for ecclesiastical support, he must paj^ 
 the same price. In 1212 he renounces all the property 
 which his progenitors and other emperors and kings 
 held of Mainz, and all his fiefs from Worms and Lorsch. 
 
 1 Conr'ad of Wittelsbach when he returns to the see of Mainz [1187- 
 1190] complains " Oppressa etiam fuit [eoclesia Mog.] per novas nmni- 
 ciones sicuti fuit Wizenowe [Weissenau] quam Tuto tunc camerarius 
 aedificaverat et regio doniinio subdiderat" [Stumpf, Acta Mog. sec, xiii., 
 pp. 114-117]. 
 
76 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 In 1220 he has to consent to the provision that in 
 " whatever wa}^ any fief belonging to an ecclesiastical 
 prince shall fall vacant, we will never invade it on our 
 
 I own authority, still less by violence, unless we are able 
 to obtain it of the good-will and free grant of the 
 prince." A most pregnant clause, for it reveals the 
 unpopular methods of the emperors, and in them one 
 of the most potent clauses for the decline of imperial 
 influence in Germany. We do not know whether 
 Frederick and his sons respected their promise to 
 abstain from violence. We can o*ily say that the 
 Church was never able to shake off the Hohenstaufi^en 
 feudatory. In 1237 Frederick II. is again found in 
 possession of the Mainz fiefs. There was a long struggle 
 over the Wurzburg fiefs which ended in a compromise 
 in 1225. The renunciation of the Strassburg fiefs bj' 
 Philip of Swabia was hotly contested, and Bamberg, 
 Spires, Metz, Basle, Chur, Passau, Kempten, Marbach, 
 and Ottobeuern can be proved to have numbered either 
 the emperor or else one of his sons among their vassals. 
 Thus the independence of the German ecclesiastical 
 
 /princes could only be fully secured by the faU of the 
 Hohenstaufi"en dynasty.^ 
 
 During the reigns of Barbarossa and Henry VI. the 
 Church, though subject to the emperors, entered keenly 
 
 1 Some of the bishops in the twelfth century were trying to get rid of 
 their feudatories altogether — cf. Frederick I.'s diploma for Bamberg, 1160 
 (Ussermann, No. cxxiii), "Eximimus ab omni jure feodali castra que in 
 tuo dominie absolute habere dinosceris ... [13 castles named]. Hec; 
 igitur et alia si qua pro necessitatibus ecclesie tue, cuius bona late 
 dispersa sunt, vel edificaveris vel aliter opitulante Domino adeptus fueris, 
 ecclesie tue ea lege speciali et vinculo juris iimodamus, ut nuUi succes- 
 sorum tuorum potestas et licentia sit aliquid de his infeodare aut sub 
 colore castreusis beueficii, rel aliquo quolibet malo ingenio a privatis usibus 
 episcopii alienare." For the whole question of imperial church-fiefs, cf. 
 Ficker, Von Heerschilde. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 77 
 
 into all the affairs of the empire. The council of princes, 
 which in reality governed Germany, was mainly com-| 
 posed of ecclesiastics, and as the appeal to Rome was a 
 long, costly, and dangerous affair, as the Pope was 
 prevailingly hostile to the emperor, and as the relations 
 of the German clergy with Rome were closely watched, 
 the grievances and doubts of the Church were generally 
 laid before the imperial Curia. Can a bishop enfeoff or 
 alienate from a church a tithe which is not forthcoming 
 in his own time ? If a bishop gives leave to a man to 
 build a house in a public square or place, is the bishop's 
 successor bound to respect the act '{ A ministerialis of 
 a church marries a freewoman. Is the offspring of the 
 marriage free ? Can a bishop enfeoff or alienate goods 
 which belong to his kitchen or to any of his offices ? 
 Has an advocate any rights over the dower of a church 
 or of a clerk alive or dead 1 Is the will of a clerk made 
 on a bed of sickness, and disposing of goods above the 
 value of five shillings without the consent of his natural 
 heirs, to be held valid or invalid ? Is an ecclesiastical 
 prince bound to pay the debts of his predecessor ? Is a 
 bishop bound to give the heirs of his predecessors his 
 predecessors' furniture ? Such questions are referred to 
 the imperial court under Barbarossa and his son, and so 
 strong is the tendency to appeal to this quarter, that 
 the Bishop of Spires complains to Henry VI. that 
 appeals are made even before sentence is given in the 
 episcopal court. It would even seem that the judges 
 from whose decision the appeal was made, were not 
 bound to be present themselves before the princes so 
 long as they made clear in writing the facts of the case, 
 the manner of the appeal, and the term within which 
 an appeal was legitimate.^ But when Innocent III. 
 
 1 Weiland, ii., Nos. 328, 329, 336, 235, 227, 300, 336, 335. 
 
78 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 ascended the papal throne to profit by the dissensions 
 between the Welfs and the Wibelins, and to apply- 
 systematically to Germany the principles of papal 
 autocracy which had always been theoretically acknow- 
 ledged, this intimate connection between the German 
 Church and the emperor gradually dissolved. Burdened, 
 sometimes almost ruined by the Italian wars, vexed by 
 the regalia and the right of spoils, compelled to eufeofi" 
 the members of the imperial family either as vassals or 
 advocates, the faithful German Church wavers in its 
 allegiance, takes advantage of a disputed election to 
 extract a kind of magna charta of liberties from the 
 emperor, and ultimately consents to allow the destruc- 
 tion of the imperial dynasty at the hands of the pope. 
 When Conradin in 1268 led his forlorn hope to fight 
 the papalists at Tagliacozzo, only three thousand Ger- 
 mans followed him into the field. 
 
 All through German history, from Rabanus Maurus 
 to Gerhoh of Reichersberg, voices were raised within the 
 Church to protest against the secular functions which 
 the imperial policy had thrust upon it.^ The voices are 
 not many, nor are they influential, but they serve to 
 remind us that from the ninth century onward there 
 were always witnesses in Germany to the ideal of the 
 spiritual life. Yet it would be unfair to tax the Ottos or 
 their successors with the charge of wilfuUy or consciously 
 degradino- a noble instrument of civilization. Otto I. 
 perceived that under his father the Church of Germany 
 was fast becoming the prey of the nobility. The 
 Bavarian duke had obtained from the Fowler the rio-ht 
 I to nominate to the Bavarian sees. If the example spread, 
 'the Church in Germany would split into a number of 
 tribal organizations, which would intensify national 
 
 1 Eabanus, Opp., v., p. 795 ; Hauck, ii. 573 ; ih., iii. 74. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 79 
 
 diflFerenees, and possibly destroy the free circulation of 
 talent through the kingdom. Otto was not choosing 
 between a spiritual church on the one hand and a 
 political church on the other. The alternative was be- 1 
 tween a Church dominated and bullied by dukes and: 
 (iounts, and a Church controlled and utilized for the 
 service of the nation by the king. Even if there were 
 no other implications, the Church gained by the change 
 of patron. With the single exception of Conrad II. all 
 the emperors from Otto the Great to Frederick II. were 
 lettered men. In an age when it was said that pictures 
 were the literature of the laymen — " pictura est laici 
 litteratura " — these laymen stand out above others as 
 representatives of culture. They were not deeply read 
 in theology, but some of them were better read ' 
 than their own divines. With the exception of 
 Frederick II. there was no man of commanding Intel- 
 lectual gifts among them, and there were only two 
 religious enthusiasts, Otto III. and Henry III. But in 
 the main, the emperors stand forth as representatives of 
 civilization, and though they took money from eccle- 
 siastics in search of promotion, and allowed the princes 
 at their courts to be bribed as freely as themselves, 
 Frederick I. was probably justified in saying that royal 
 appointments turned out better than capitular elections.^ 
 It is true that the highest posts generally went to men 
 of noble extraction, and that the chroniclers are careful 
 to mention the fact.^ Otto I. cannot be acquitted of 
 
 ' " Sciatis tamen quia dum pi'o voluntate imperatorum ista dispensaretur 
 phires justi inventi sunt sacerdotea quam hoc tempore dum per electionem 
 intronizantur " (Arnold Lub., iii., c. 18). 
 
 2C4udenus, Sylloge [ITiS], remarks bitterly, apropos of Christian II. 
 of Mainz [1249, 50], " Admiranda res ! per integrum seculi xiii. decursum 
 vis ullus occurrit in Germaaia episcopus cujus natales decautati non sunt, 
 *t tamen supremi electoris ecclesiasti cognomen nondum potuit exquiri." 
 
8o THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part r 
 
 nepotism, or Henry II. of having unduly favoured 
 Bavarians. It is true also that the clerkly warriors 
 outnumber the clerkly theologians. But we cannot con- 
 clude from this that most of the German church patron- 
 age was wilfully exercised mth a corrupt design. The 
 interests of many institutions are often best secured by 
 the alternate appointments of men of very various gifts. 
 The scholar allows the neighbouring nobility to tyrannize 
 over his flock ; the soldier must be chosen to succeed 
 him. " I must send a man," said Henry II. to his 
 brother-in-law, Adalbero, who had turned the town of 
 Treves into a solitude, and driven the archbishop to 
 Coblentz, "who can put a stop to your wild deeds." 
 The emperor chose Poppo of Bamberg, young, robust,, 
 and descended of a fine fighting stock, to be the new 
 archbishop, and he proved the man for the occasion. 
 He distributed sixty prebends to as many knights, and 
 then began to besiege the neighbouring castles and 
 eventually rid the city of Treves from the bird of prey.^ 
 In the Rhenish bishoprics, surrounded by the turbulent 
 nobility of Lotharingia, the art of war was a necessary 
 1 episcopal accomplishment. Many of the prelates may 
 have sought their quarrels ; many may have bought 
 their way to a bishopric ^dth a view to carrying out 
 some family vendetta ; some succumbed to the tempta- 
 
 The appointment of Willigis of Mainz [985] was resisted by many " ob- 
 vilitatem sui generis" (Ann. Hild., SS. iii. 62; cf. Will., Regesten von 
 Main:, passim). Xorbert was condemned at Fritzlar in 1118 for discarding 
 fine clothes, since tlie custom of the land was to wear them, especially 
 among the nobles, of whom he was one ( Vita S. Sorberti ; Acta, SS. BoU. i. 
 826 ; Harz., Ornc. Germ., iii. ■2'2, 3). - 
 
 1 Vita Adrdberoni.'i, ii., o. 27, SS. iv. 668. The desolation of Treves is 
 thus described : " Urbes certe depopulatae, vici et villae incensae omues, 
 viri omnes et feminae et totum promiscuiim vulgus ferro, fame, igne 
 pestilentiaque consumptum ; multi etiam nobiles in paupertatem et 
 magnam miseriam devoluti : multi gladio perempti." 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 8i 
 
 tions of military display/ and squandered the revenues 
 of their sees in the collection of a small army. But 
 upon many war was forced as an imperious necessity, 
 and the exercise of royal patronage cannot be con- 
 demned solely on the ground that it emphasized the 
 military character of the Church. 
 
 Still the emperors cannot be acquitted of having 
 made the Church an instrument subservient not only 
 to their civil, but also to their military needs. But if 
 they may be accused of having steeped the Church in 
 seeularity, they might reasonably reply not only that 
 they thereby helped to unify the state, to transcend 
 provincial antagonisms, and to crush feudal anarchy, 
 but that by the use of the resources of the Church 
 they were enabled to prosecute ideal objects and large 
 policies. They might also reply that in binding the 
 Church to a long term of imperial servitude, they were 
 in reality conceding to it an ampler sphere of activity 
 and the highest liberty of which it was then capable. 
 
 We must remember too that nothino; is so difficult as 
 to form a strongly-marked professional class in a semi- 
 barbarous society, where there is little differentiation of 
 functions, and where the whole structure of civilization 
 is constantly being threatened by elementary perils. 
 It is questionable whether, if it had not been for the 
 highly specialized discipline of the monasteries, the 
 clerical profession would ever have obtained the dis- 
 tinctness of outline which in Catholic countries at the 
 present day so effectually marks it off from all other 
 callings. The monasteries performed many useful 
 functions in society. They preserved a tradition of 
 learning, they showed a pattern of self-denial, they did J 
 much for education and agriculture ; 1)ut perhaps the 
 
 ■• Oesta Trevironim, c. 22, ad ann. 1102. 
 VOL. II. F 
 
82 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 most important of all their services was that they 
 maintained the distinction between the lay and the 
 clerical profession. Whenever the clerical profession 
 in the Middle Ages showed signs of losing tone and 
 distinctness, it was rescued by a monastic revival. But 
 nothing is more remarkable in medieval history than 
 the extreme difficulty which was found in maintaining 
 even a moderate standard of clerical morals. The 
 clergy, in fact, were too large, too important, and too 
 highly-privileged a class to escape the dangers of partial 
 secularization. Even in the thirteenth century, German 
 councils had to legislate to enforce the tonsure upon 
 clerks. 
 
 It is indeed looseness of thought which prompts us to 
 ispeak of the secularization of the clergy in the Middle 
 Ages. The phrase postulates a golden age of ecclesias- 
 tical history which had as little real existence as the 
 state of nature prior to the social contract. It is truer 
 to history to imagine that after the barbaric invasions 
 the influence of the Roman Church was extended partly 
 by pure missionary enthusiasm, partly by the super- 
 stitions or enlightened self-interest of barbarous kings, 
 
 \ until it drew recruits from all classes of society; and 
 being therefore stocked with men in every stage of 
 culture from the unlettered rustic to the subtle meta- 
 physician, it could not help reflecting, like every other 
 large profession, the manners and opinions of society 
 
 i around it ; was fuller of barbarians than of scholars, 
 of sensualists than of saints, of half-pagan superstition 
 than of enlightened belief; that consumed by debasing 
 avarice, racked by mean ambitions, largely given to 
 childish parade and old wives' gossip and morbid 
 sentiment, it yet had moments of true religious ex- 
 altation, of the highest self- surrender, of serious and 
 
CHAP, xj THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 83 
 
 heroic study, of enlightened statesmanship, of brave 
 conflicts with temptation, of ardent and humorous and 
 tender sympathy. 
 
 The German Church in the Middle Ages presents 
 these contrasts. There are famous clerical generals like 
 Eainald of Cologne and Christian of Mainz ; there are 
 skilled architects like Bernward of Hildesheim and 
 Benno of Osnabriick ; missionaries like Anschar, who 
 converted Denmark and Sweden ; like Adalbert, who 
 met with death in Prussia ; like Otto of Bamberg, 
 builder and administrator, whose curious and thrilling 
 experiences in Pomerania are so vividly narrated by 
 his biographer Herbord. Great things are done for the 
 colonization of waste lands by the Cistercian monks and 
 by prelates such as Frederick, Archbishop of Bremen, 
 and Wichmann, Archbishop of Magdeburg. There are 
 canonists like Eegino of Prllm and Burchard of Worms ; 
 clever and faithful historians like Adam of Bremen ; 
 scholars like Rabanus Mfiurus, " the first preceptor of 
 Germany," and William of Hirschau ; and one great 
 philosopher towering above all others, Albertus Magnus, 
 the creator of the Aristotelian theology of the Middle 
 Ages, and the master of Aquinas. The Church too 
 supplied many statesmen. No one, perhaps, of the 
 eminence of Abbot Suger of St. Denis or of Arch- 
 Ijishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, but Willigis of ]\lainz 
 governs the country during the minority of Otto III., 
 and Engelbert of Cologne during the minority of 
 Henry A^ll. The founder of the Carthusian Order, 
 which, by combining the ideals of the common and of 
 the eremitic life, and by restricting the acquisition of 
 property, preserved its early purity longer than any 
 other monastic order in the Middle Ages, was St. 
 Bruno, a German from Cologne. The saintly Norbert 
 
84 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 of Xanten was the chief adviser of the Emperor Lothair, 
 and the founder of the Premonstratensian Order of 
 Clerks, which was distinguished as being the first 
 attempt to combine the monastic ideal with pastoral 
 activity. Many rude, violent, and treacherous figures 
 pass across the stage, such as Adalbert of Bremen and 
 Adolph of Cologne, and one of the darkest pages in 
 German history is the treatment of the northern and 
 middle Slaves by men who were professing to spread 
 a gospel of peace and good-will. Strange contrasts 
 were often united in the same person. The two most 
 conspicuous forgers of ecclesiastical documents in 
 this period, Pilgrim of Passau and Adaldag of Ham- 
 burg, were otherwise noted for the zeal with which 
 they promoted the spread of the gospel among the 
 heathen, and for the vigour of their administration. 
 The vivacious and witty Adalbero -of Treves, whose 
 charmed life during the war of the Investitures gives 
 rise to many a pleasant saga, finds nothing in the 
 world amiss except the prospect of a poor archbishopric. 
 A brave captain in war, he yet has pleasure in the 
 converse of the learned. An ardent papalist, he is 
 yet the most daredevil Burgundian knight in Europe. 
 A founder of monasteries and a patron of learning, he 
 keeps the state of a mighty prince, sailing to the 
 imperial court at Frankfort with a fleet of more than 
 forty ships, and attended by the Dukes of Lorraine 
 and Limburg, by eight counts, and two French 
 philosophers.^ 
 
 ' Vita S. Bennvardi, SS. iv., pp. 757-82 ; Vita Bennonis, SS. xii., pp. 
 58-84 ; Vita S. Anskarii, SS. ii., pp. 683-725 ; Passio S. Adalbm-ti, SS. v., 
 pp. 706-S ; Vita S. Adalberti, SS. iv., p. 577 ; Vita Ottonis, SS. xii., p. 728 ; 
 Vita Burchardi, SS. iv., p. 829 ; Burchardi Decretornm libri, ap. Migne, 
 Patr. Lat., cxl., pp. 537-1038 ; Reginonis libri duo de synodalibus causis et 
 disciplinis ecdesiasticis, ap. Migiie, Patr. Lat., cxxxii., pp. 185-370 ; Vita' 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 85 
 
 Still, while we must acknowledge that the Church in 
 Germany contained many eminent men of various gifts, 
 it was yet on the whole far less conspicuous in culture 
 and learning than the Churches of France and of Eng- 
 land, and if we deduct Lotharingia and Burgundy, the 
 balance will be still more heavily inclined against it. 
 The Rhenish districts were no doubt more advanced in 
 civilization than the rest of Germany, yet with the 
 single exception of Albert the Great, who, however, 
 received his schooling in Italy, there is no name of more 
 than respectable importance associated with this region. 
 A diligent collector of educational facts like Specht can 
 tell us very little about the Ehenish schools.-^ It is 
 true that Bishop Burchard of Worms [1000-1025] 
 collects all the Carolingiau rules for the education of 
 the clergy. No illiterates are to be ordained ; every 
 ordinand is to know the mass, the pericopies, the bap- 
 tismal rite, the psalter, the homilies for Sundays and 
 feast daj^s, the penetentiaries, the rules for determining 
 ecclesiastical dates, the portions of the canon law which 
 are essential to his profession. Every parochial priest 
 is to have a clerk, who can sing, and read the epistle 
 and lessons, and keep school, and admonish his jjarish- 
 ioners to send their sons to the Church to be instructed. 
 It also seems to be the case that the Salian emperors 
 encouraged the cathedral school at Spires, and that this 
 school was at one time largely attended. A few letters 
 written by ecclesiastics of Worms in Henry II. 's reign 
 
 Williffisi, SS. XV., pp. 743-5 ; Vita S. Engelherti, ap. Bohmer, Pontes, ii., 
 pp. 294-329; Ficker, J., Engelbert der Ueilige ; S. Brunonis Acta, ap. 
 Migne, Fatr. Lat., clii., pp. 1-631 ; Vita S. Norherti, SS. xii., pp. 662-703 ; 
 Winter, Die Prdmonstratenser des 12 Jahr. und Hire Bedeutung fur das 
 nordostliche Deutschland ; Diimmler, Pilgrim von Passau und das 
 Erzbisthum Loreh ; Gesta Adalberonis, SS. viii., p. 236. For further 
 references, cf. Potthast, Bihliotheca Historica medii aevi. 
 
 ' Specht, Oeschichte des UnterricMswesen in Deutschland, pp. 329-37. 
 
86 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 prove the existence of a moderate standard of culture 
 in a small circle at that time.^ Yet even when these 
 facts are stated, when in addition it is shown, that Hilde- 
 brand at one time studied in Cologne, that Marianus 
 Scotus was summoned to Mainz [1059-84], that Gregory 
 V. was probably trained at Worms, little has been 
 done to vindicate the ecclesiastical culture of the Rhine- 
 land. In the eleventh century inquisitive Germans 
 were going to Paris or Chartres or Angouleme for 
 instruction," and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
 the vogue of Paris-made scholarship and philosophy was 
 even still higher. The general illiteracy of the Rhenish 
 clergy is clearly proved by a chapter in the Council of 
 Cologne in 1260, which runs as follows, "Also concerning 
 clerks who have been noted for insufficiency of learning, 
 that is to say illiteracy, as we do not require eminent 
 knowledge of all men, but that they should know how 
 to read and sing competently at the ministration of the 
 divine office ; so we order that those who cannot in 
 person do their duty in the way of singing in the choir 
 and reading, should employ a suitable person to do it 
 for them according as shall seem good to the discretion 
 of the Dean." ^ Here then in Cologne, the most im 
 portant commercial town in Germany, in the last half 
 of the thirteenth century, clerical illiteracy is formally 
 sanctified by a provincial council. To those who know 
 the disturbed political condition of the Rhine valley in 
 the thirteenth century, the struggles between the bishops 
 and the crafts on the one hand, and the bishops and thci 
 nobility on the other, the result is not wonderful. ' 
 
 ^ Pflugk-Harttung, Iter Italicum, p. 382 ff. 
 
 2 Hauok, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, iii. 9.32. 
 
 ^ Harzheim, Concilia Oermaniae, iii., p. 590. Clerical illiteracy was, 
 however, by no means confined to Germany. Cf. the remarkable passage 
 in Roger Bacon's Gompenditim Philosophiae, SS. xxviii., p. 580. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 87 
 
 Nor again was the intellectual condition of the rest of 
 Germany very far different. The two famous south 
 German monastic schools of Eeichenau and St. Gall 
 had seen their best days before the close of the eleventh 
 century. The war of the InA^estitures ruined them ; the 
 papalist abbots of Eeichenau fought out a long and 
 bitter feud with the imperialist abbots of St. Gall, and 
 all the lamps of learning went out in the course of tliis 
 obscure and tedious conflict. The catheclral school of 
 Freisino- famous in the ninth and tenth centuries for its 
 music, recovered for a moment some of its prestige 
 under Otto of Freising (1137-57), who introduced 
 disputations after the Parisian method, and has the 
 credit of having educated Ragewin, the spirited con- 
 tinuator of the bishops' history. But the revival was 
 short-lived ; the school rapidly declined in reputation, 
 and did not succeed in educating a single man whose 
 literary achievements have survived to posterity. Of 
 the other south German centres of culture few were 
 more important in early times than the Benedictine 
 monastery of Tegernsee. The calligraphy of its scribes 
 and the excellence of the materials, with which and upon 
 which they worked, were famous throughout Germany. 
 Henry III. and Frederick I. ordered books to be tran- 
 scribed there, and the monastery seems always to have 
 been actively engaged in the useful art of multiplying 
 manuscripts. Yet the original litergjy_achievements of 
 Tegernsee are not remarkable. The Ruotlieb, one of 
 the most curious monuments of early German poetry, 
 was possibly written by Abbot Fromund. The Ludus 
 de Antechristo, and the Odae Quinnales and Bucolica 
 Quirinalia of Metellus were produced in the monastery 
 in the middle of the twelfth century. But the sur- 
 viving original labours of an imperial abbey which had 
 
88 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 been singularly sheltered from invasion and violence by 
 its situation on an island in the Lake of Constance, 
 and which had occupied itself with literature for several 
 centuries, do not amount to more than a clever school- 
 boy could produce in a fortnight. 
 
 The school of St. Emmeran_o^J^gensburg was more 
 productive. From the middle of the tenth to the end 
 of the eleventh century it produced several men who 
 played a part in the religious and literary movements of 
 their time. Balderich of Lidge, Poppo of Treves, Wolf- 
 gang of Regensburg, all came from this school. A 
 catalogue of the library composed between 975 and 1000 
 shows it to have contained three hundred volumes, and 
 an ignorant enthusiast of the eleventh century has 
 ventured to compare the quality of its studies, and to 
 prefer the truth of its philosophy to the studies and the 
 philosophy pursued in Athens. The Aristotle of " this 
 second Athens" was Othlo, "the first voluminous 
 German writer," whose piety and conceit induced him 
 to compile a book of Proverbs with a view of extirpating 
 the study of the Latin classics. The Plato of Regens- 
 burg was William of Hirschau, the protagonist of 
 classical learningT'aSd"^ vigorous writer on grammar, 
 dialectic, rhetoric, and astronomy, the creator of many 
 monasteries in the Black Forest and in Bavaria, and the 
 unresting protagonist of the Hildebrandine cause in 
 Germany. But the bishops of Regensburg were cursed 
 with ambition. In the twelfth century we find them 
 engaged in active feuds with the neighbouring nobles, 
 and the Italian wars of Barbarossa must have drained 
 the resources of the see and deflected the energies of the 
 chapter. It was an ancient privilege of the greater church 
 of Regensburg that no one should be received into the 
 chapter unless he were either a noble or a literate. The 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 89 
 
 privilege itself is significant of the way in which ecclesi- 
 astical patronage was exercised, and in times of local 
 feud or imperial war service we may suspect that 
 a noble would have more chance of obtaining a stall 
 than a " literate or one sufficiently exercised in the 
 divine offices." In any case the school of Eegensburg 
 <;leclines, as all the south German schools had declined 
 before it. There is not a single well-known name or 
 book connected with it in the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 Nothing is so difficult as to estimate the degree of 
 culture obtaining in a large profession many centuries 
 ago. Yet all the evidence obtainable concerning the 
 culture of the German Church, from the beginning of 
 the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, tends to \ 
 show that it was inferior both in quality and amount to 
 the contemporaneous culture of France, England, and 
 Italy. It is perhaps only during the Ottonian period 
 when Germany could show an historian like Widukind, 
 a theologian like Ratherius, and a humorist Eke Bruno; 
 when she afforded a shelter to the witty Luitprand 
 of Cremona, and attracted the omniscient Gerbert of 
 Rheims, that she was in the van of progress. But even 
 then classical culture met with the usual ecclesiastical 
 obstacles. John of Gorze, who is held up to our 
 special admiration as a model of the intellectual virtues, 
 "heard the first elements of grammar and the first part of 
 Donatus, and, content with that introductory aspersion, 
 completely betook himself to the divine scriptures."-' 
 The foreign scholars, attracted to the court of Otto I., 
 were looked upon with jealousy and suspicion,^ and the 
 pious Hrothsuitha, while properly despairing of emulating 
 the artistic virtues of Terence, trusted that her insipid 
 
 ' Vita Johannis Gorziensis, SS. iv., p. 340. " Hanck, iii., p. 333. 
 
go THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 Christianity might provide an improving substitute. 
 During the same reign a clerk saw in a dream 
 Archbishop Bruno of Cologne arraigned before the 
 throne of God for his devotion to the classics, and the 
 elaborate apology for classical education which is pre- 
 fixed to the astronomical works of William of Hirschau 
 illustrates the strength of the forces which were making 
 for devout_ohscnrantism in the middle of the eleventh 
 century. A trick played by Henry II. upon Bishop 
 Meinwerk of Paderborn reflects as much discredit upon 
 the emperor who conferred, as upon the clerk who 
 accepted the bishopric. The emperor erased the initial 
 syllable "fa" from the words in the mass for the dead, 
 and the bishop, whose ignorance of Latin is only partially 
 excused by his ability to read, innocently offered up a 
 prayer for he and she mules [pro mulis et mulabus]} 
 The reign of Henry III. promised to usher in a new 
 order of things. The emperor himself was skilled in 
 letters, and his wife, Agnes of Poitou, brought with 
 her an influx of French manners. The old-fashioned 
 Germans saw with regret the introduction of manj^ 
 " ignominious French follies," such as the shaving of 
 beards and the shortening of tunics, which had been 
 strict!)- forbidden in the days of the Ottos and the 
 Henries, but even before this the most enterprising of 
 the Germans had recognized the superiority of French 
 learning, and schoolmasters were eagerly sought for 
 from the Rhenish districts and from France. But 
 (then came the wars of the Investitures which arrested 
 I the Latin education of Germany, as the Danish wars 
 arrested the Latin education of England. And the 
 wars of the Investitures were followed by the crusade 
 of Conrad III. and the Italian campaigns of the later 
 
 ^ Vita Meimverci, SS. xi., p. 150. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 91 
 
 Hohenstauffen. The fate of the famous Abbey of Fulda, 
 which was founded in 744, which trained Walafrid 
 Strabo, and Hartmuth of St. Gall, and Otfrid of Weis- 
 senburg, and Servatus Lupus the first German humorist, 
 may serve to illustrate a process which affected most of 
 the German abbeys. The ministeriales and military, 
 vassals of the see became too powerful for the monks. 
 They controlled the revenues of the house and mastered 
 its policy, and the neighbouring princes, seeing in the 
 territories of Fulda a mere collection of feudal castles, 
 ravaged them without scruple. The plate even of the 
 abbey was pledged to meet the obligations of imperial 
 war service, and by 1150 the house was almost ruined. 
 
 The German Church then was not conspicuously a 
 literary Church. It was on the whole an ignorant, 
 worldly, military Church. " Lo," wrote Eichard of 
 Cornwall to Prince Edward of England in 1257, "what 
 spirited and warlike archbishops we have in Germany. 
 It would not be a very bad thing for you if you could 
 create such archbishops in England."^ The general 
 causes of this secularity are sufficiently obvious — the 
 comparative barbarity of the whole German people, the \ 
 lack of good roads, the inferiority both in size and : 
 number of German to French and Italian towns ; the ; 
 absence of a Latin element in the population ; a succes- 
 sion of wars, first the war of the Hungarians and 
 Normans, then the wars of Investiture, then the Italian < 
 wars of the Hohenstauffen, then the civil wars of Ger- 
 many between Welfs and Wibelins ; the lack of a strong- 
 central government, which throws every bishop and 
 abbot upon his own resources in a disordered land ; the 
 policy of the emperors, who make the Church the chief 
 political, financial, and military instrument of their rule. 
 
 ' Annals of Burton, SS. xxvii., p. 480. 
 
92 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 While the universities of Salerno and Bologna, Paris and 
 Oxford were flourishing in the twelfth century, no 
 university was created east of the Rhine and north of 
 the Alps until the University of Prague in 1447. It 
 follows from this that the German Church was a highlj^ 
 political Church. The obverse side of its literary and 
 theological ignorance is its vigorous political activity. 
 In spite of the fact that an exce^jtional field of missionary 
 enterprise lay open before it on the eastern border, it 
 was the least professional and the most vulgar branch of 
 the Catholic Church of the west. Whatever test is 
 applied, this will be found to be the case. 
 
 The councils of the Church were not purely ecclesias- 
 tical councils. A diocesan synod at Cologne in 1077 
 was attended " by all who had the care of souls, both 
 monks and clerks. Besides that there were counts and 
 other noble persons from the people in great numbers." ^ 
 At a diocesan council at Quedlinburg in 1085 a layman 
 stands up to refute a clerk upon a point of ecclesiastical 
 law.^ At a provincial synod of Magdeburg in 1135 
 there are present five bishops, six princes, three nobles, 
 five minister iales.^ At a synod of Cologne the friars of 
 Steinfeld appeal to the archbishop, his priors, and the 
 barons of the land.^ 
 
 Every abbot and bishop governs his territory by the 
 aid of a little parliament of nobles and ministeriales. 
 Again the participation of the people in episcopal 
 elections continues longer in Germany than in other 
 parts of EurojDe.^ x4s the Bishop wielded political power 
 
 ^ Harzheim, Concilia Germaniae, iii., p. 187. ^ lb., iii., p. 200. 
 
 3 lb., iii., p. 329. * lb., iii., p. 866, 7. 
 
 ^ Cf. Innocent III., Ep., ii., 54, 1199, "Laicis sub poena excommunica- 
 tionis firmiter inhibentes ne amplius quam consensum debitum in electione 
 praesumant aliquatenus iisurpare." Cf . also the " Dialogus clerici et laici 
 contra persecutores ecclesiarum " : ed. Waitz, Chronica Reg. Col., p. 315 ff.. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 93 
 
 it was only natural that his election should be a matter 
 of general interest in the town which it was his duty to 
 defend and to govern. The avidity of the nobles and 
 ministeriales for episcopal fiefs, and of clerks for prefer- 
 ment, combined with more respectable motives to produce 
 a paroxysm of excitement and corruption, whenever a 
 bishopric was vacant ; for it was well understood that a 
 German bishop, like an American president, must reward 
 his supporters. In 1124 Godfrey, dean and archdeacon, 
 having amassed a large fortune from pluralities, bought 
 the archbishopric of Treves for a hundred thousand 
 or more marks of silver from Henry V. The men of 
 Treves had in vain objected to the foolishness of this 
 servile noble from the province of Lidge, and no sooner 
 had he been appointed than the knights rose against 
 him. They claimed that he had promised them benefices 
 and that it was by their favour that he had obtained 
 his election. The archbishop was timid and the knights 
 were strong, and though the bribes of Godfrey were 
 lavish, the fields of his province were ravaged bj' his 
 dissatisfied supporters. 
 
 It remains now to consider the attitude of the Church 
 in Germany towards the popes on the one hand and 
 the emperors on the other. 
 
 When, in the eleventh century, the papacy began 
 to recover power and to formulate anew the principles 
 which had been laid down by Gregory the Great and 
 Nicholas I., it did not find an over-zealous ally in the 
 German Church. If English historians choose to call 
 the medieval church in England a national church, 
 and French historians choose to find in the policy 
 of a Hincmar, or in the resolutions of the councils 
 
 where the question is discussed in reference to the election of Bruno of 
 Cologne, 1205. 
 
94 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 of St. Bale, a premonition of the Gallican liberties, 
 Germans may with still greater reason contend that 
 of all the branches of the medieval Catholic Church, 
 theirs was the least ultramontane. The Germans, 
 always scared by the thought of taxation, looked upon 
 the English tribute of Peter's pence as an intolerable 
 burden of servitude ; the Italian journeys of the three 
 Ottos revealed the degradation of papacy ; the policy of 
 the emperors worked the Church into the general fabric 
 of the national government, while the vast size of the 
 German provinces stimulated the temporal ambitions 
 of the prelates who ruled them. Less disciplined and 
 less civilized than the French or the Normans, the Ger- 
 man churchmen received the programme of reform with 
 something like an indignant protest. Yet the moA^ement 
 was not initiated from Eome. It was Henry II. who 
 first opened in Germany the campaign against simony 
 and the marriage of priests. He began by carrying out 
 a monastic reform, abolishing small monasteries, or 
 consolidating them, sweeping away abuses, confiscating 
 monastic lands, earning for himself much unpopularity 
 and much gain by this well-established cure by bleeding.^ 
 Then in 1019 he presided over a synod at Goslar, 
 where a discussion took place concerning the marriage 
 of clerks, which had been forbidden by the decrees 
 of the council of Pavia, held under the presidency of 
 Benedict YIII. in the previous year.'^ In 1020 he 
 invites the Pope to Bamberg, renews and extends the 
 donations to the Roman Church made by Charles the 
 Great and Otto I. In 1023 he meets Kino; Robert of 
 France, at ^louzou and Ivois, with a view to carrying 
 out a joint reform of the Church, and the two kings 
 decide that a grea.t council shall be summoned at Pavia 
 
 'Gies., K.Z., 101, ii., pp. 78-90. ^ -v^gyand, i., No. 34. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 95 
 
 in their presence and in the presence of the pope to 
 pluck out the abuses of the Church both north and 
 south of the Alps. The German Church seems to have 
 viewed these measures with distrust. AVe have no 
 evidence that the decrees of the synod of Pavia wei-e 
 ever published in Germany, in spite of the close alliance 
 between the emperor and the pope, and the conference 
 between the German emperor and the King of France 
 may have been caused by the emperor's consciousness 
 that he was unable to carry his German prelates with 
 him. It is at any rate significant that a synod of the 
 suffragans of Mainz, held under Archbishop Aribo in 
 1023, attended by five bishops and ten abbots, and 
 summoned at the very time when the sovereigns were 
 engaged in conference at Ivois, passed several decrees 
 with a view of strengthening the position of the bishop 
 against the pope.^ We cannot indeed conclude from 
 this that the archbishop aimed at a complete breach 
 with Rome, Ijut it is clear that he desired a substantial 
 measure of independence, and that he was jealous of the 
 close union of pope and emperor. Benedict VI 11. was a 
 strong man. Under the pretext that Aribo had violated 
 ecclesiastical law by attempting to divorce the Count from 
 the Countess of Hammerstein, he refused Aribo the pal- 
 lium, and the archbishop summoned a synod of German 
 bishops at Hochst to protest against the high-handed 
 proceeding of the pope. The letter of the suffragans of 
 jlainz (present with one exception) to the pope has been 
 regarded as "a glorious proof of the resolution of the 
 German clergy to resist Eomish pretensions." What it 
 
 1 Harzheim, Cone. iii. 55, SS. v. 429 ; Hefele, Concilieng, iv. 6.39. The 
 synod of Selingenstadt was held August 22, 1022. Aribo's name is, how- 
 ever, frequently found in imperial charters after that date, which shows 
 that he cannot have broken off from the emperor (Will., Reg. i., p. 152, 35). 
 
96 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 does prove is that the suffragans of Mainz made 
 common cause with their archbishop/ and avowed 
 their joint responsibility for his acts. 
 
 It may be regarded as a measure of the independence 
 which a large section of the German clergy still pre- 
 served at the beginning of the eleventh century. Aribo- 
 was a rough, ambitious man, who would have died 
 rather than relinquish any privilege which had been 
 enjoyed by his predecessors.^ He belonged to the 
 secular rather than to the ecclesiastical tj^pe of church- 
 man.^ He wished to consolidate the various usages 
 which existed within his diocese concerning ritual, and 
 priestly discipline, and matrimonial law, but it would be 
 extravagant to assert that he contemplated a wholesale 
 ecclesiastical reformation to be carried out independ- 
 ently of emperor and pope. A limited reform which 
 did not touch the two cardinal points in the papal 
 programme, simony and Nicholaitism, was what he 
 wanted, and he wished to carry out the reform by him- 
 self. And in this policy he was supported by his suff- 
 ragans.'* But he was no revolutionary. In 1031 he 
 went on pilgrimage to Eome. 
 
 The work of Benedict VIII. and Henry II. was soon 
 undone. The papacy relapsed into sin and impotence, 
 and one of the worst popes w-ho has ever disgraced the 
 
 1 The letter is printed Jaffe, iii. 326, and Gies. ii°. 708. We do not 
 know whether the council of Hochst ever really met, or whether Pope- 
 Benedict lived long enough to receive this letter. 
 
 ^Aribo's undignified quarrel with Godehard of Hildesheim over the 
 nunnery is narrated in Wolfher's Vita Godehardi, SS. xi. 167. For his 
 attempt in 1026 to get the question decided in his favour during the 
 absence of the emperor, cf. Vita Meinw., SS. xi. 153. 
 
 3 Aribo is the first Archbishop of Mainz of whom a denarius exists 
 (Will., Reg. i., xlix.). 
 
 ■* For Giesebrecht's view, cf. K.Z. ii. 279 ; Bresslau, pp. 258, 68, 78 ; 
 and Bayer's criticism on Bresslau's book in OiJttinger Oelehrte Anzeigen,. 
 1875, vol. ii., 1178. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 97 
 
 tiara was not only the nephew of Benedict, but was 
 restored to power in 1038 by Conrad II. Conrad 
 himself is one of the few purely secular and the 
 only illiterate emperor of the period. The German 
 Church was, so far as Rome was concerned, left to its 
 devices. In the north, Adalbert, Archbishop of Ham- 
 burg-Bremen (1045-72), was intent on founding a 
 patriarchate which should include Denmark, Sweden, 
 Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Orkneys. In the 
 centre. Archbishop Bardo of Mainz, whose eloquence and 
 piety and active zeal for ecclesiastical building have 
 been recorded,^ is employed in uncongenial campaigns 
 in Bohemia (1040-1041). In the south-east the Hun- 
 garian wars of Henry III., and the feuds of Duke 
 Conrad of Bavaria and the Bishop of Regensburg, left 
 little room for peaceful development. Yet it is in 
 the reign of Henry III. that the first comprehensive 
 effort is made at clerical reform in Germany. The 
 emperor's marriage with Agnes of Poitou had opened 
 Germany to Cluniac influences, and Henry was possessed 
 with a fine and constant enthusiasm. In 1049 Leo IX. 
 came to Mainz, and held a synod before the emperor and 
 the princes of the empire, which was attended by forty- 
 two bishops. The synod wholly condemned simony and 
 Nicholaitism, and the prelates were left to enforce the 
 decrees in their respective dioceses." Yet in spite of the 
 close alliance of Pope and emperor, the German prelates 
 were by no means inclined to sacrifice their interests or 
 the interests of Germany to the exigencies of the Curia. 
 When Leo IX., in 1052, came to Henry III. to beg for 
 
 1 Will., Regesta von Mainz, vol. i., pp. 165-V6 ; Vulculdi, Vita Bardonis, 
 SS. xi. 318. 
 
 2 For the execution of the decrees in Adalbert's diocese, cf. Jooundi, 
 Tra-ns. S. Serv., SS. xii. 90. 
 
 VOL. II. G 
 
98 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part l 
 
 German swordsmen to deliver Apulia from the Normans, 
 the emperor ordered a large imperial arm)^ to attend the 
 Pope. Bishop Gebhard of Eichstadt, who was a prudent 
 man, saw that there was more pressing work in Bavaria 
 and upon the Hungarian border. He came to the em- 
 peror, when the army was already on its way, and 
 vehemently represented the folly of the undertaking. 
 Henry was persuaded, and the troops were recalled. 
 Only some seven hundred Swabians followed the Pope 
 to Italy, and of these many were condottieri in search of 
 loot, while many were cut-throats, outlaws and exiles.^ 
 It was, no doubt, fortunate for the papacy that the great 
 German prelates, who commanded such large military 
 resources, did not join Leo in his Norman campaign. A 
 German victory at Civitella opens a vista of possibilities, 
 upon which it would be idle to speculate ; but in any 
 case it would have weakened rather than fortified the 
 independence of the Pope. But the main fact to notice is 
 that Leo IX., who was a Burgundian, and closely con- 
 nected by ties of friendship and common purpose with 
 the Emperor Henry, was thoroughly defeated in one 
 of the decisive battles of history, because a German 
 bishop advised against sending an imperial army to his 
 assistance. Another incident, far less important, illus- 
 trates the same point. On December 26th, in 1053, Pope 
 Leo IX. and the emperor were at Worms. The Pope 
 had asked the Archbishop Luitpold of Mainz to celebrate 
 the mass, and in the course of the service Humbert, one 
 of the archbishop's deacons, chanted the lesson. Leo 
 sent for Humbert and degraded him for contumacy. 
 
 'William of Apulia, ii. 51, SS. ix. 256, mentions 700 Swabians. 
 Amatus, iii. 34, mentions only 300 Germans. The cliaracter of the force 
 is described by Hermann of Eeichenau, SS. v., p. 132. The motives of 
 Bishop Gebhard are given in Steindorff, Heinrich III., vol. ii., p. 218. 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 99 
 
 The archbishop sent to expostulate ; the Pope remained 
 firm. When the gospel had been read and the ofiertory 
 chanted, and the time came for the communion, the 
 archbishop sat still in his seat and refused to complete 
 the oflfice unless the papal sentence were revoked. Leo 
 ended by yielding to Luitpold, and the chronicler 
 remarks approAdngly upon the authority of the 
 prelate who defended his dignity, and the humility 
 of the pontiff who thought good to yield to the metro- 
 politan in his own diocese.^ 
 
 After the death of Henry III. the opposition of the 
 German Church to the Gregorian reforms became 
 obvious. The Antipope Cadalus was entirely supported 
 by the Lombard and German clergy. There is indeed 
 some reason for supposing that Archbishop Anno of 
 Cologne represented Hildebrandine interests in Ger- 
 many.^ When by a daring cowp de main he got 
 possession of the person of the young emperor, he 
 received the fervent congratulations of the papal party. 
 It was thought that he had rescued Henry from the 
 corrupt Camarilla of the empress, that he might rule 
 Germany in the spirit of Henry's father. The expec- 
 tation was indeed partially realized, for Anno summoned 
 a council at Mantua and terminated the papal schism by 
 transferring the allegiance of the German clergy from 
 Cadalus to Alexander. Yet it is a remarkable fact that, 
 although he was expressly ordered by Gregory to sum- 
 mon a council to put down Nicholaitism, there is no 
 record of his ever having done so.* If he was all that 
 
 1 Ekkeh., Chron. Univ., SS. vi. 196, 197 ; Will., Reg. von Mainz, vol. i. 
 p. 177, No. 8 ; Baxmann, Politik der Fapste, ii., p. 233. 
 
 ^ For Anno's ecclesiastical views, cf. Ennen, Geschichie der Stadt Eoln, L, 
 p. 312. 
 
 3 Ennen, Oeschichte der Stadt Eoln, i., p. 317 ; Harzheim, Concilia Oer- 
 maniae, iii. 177. 
 
loo THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 the ardent fancy of Peter Damiani pictured/ tie was at 
 any rate more discreet in his ecclesiastical statesmanship 
 than the Italian party were prepared to be. Instead of 
 engaging in a direct campaign against clerical marriage, 
 he offered additional inducements to clerical celibac3^ 
 There was no monastery in Cologne which he did not 
 enrich.^ 
 
 The demand for the celibacy of the clergy involved a 
 social revolution for which Germany was as little pre- 
 pared as Lombardy itself The resistance to the 
 Gregorian decrees was general and vehement. " When 
 the aforesaid statutes — and the same applies to almost 
 all the statutes — of the apostolic see were promulgated 
 through the churches either by letters or mandates, 
 they were opposed by almost everybody, and hence the 
 greatest hatred was stirred up against the Pope and the 
 very few who agreed with him, and very great schisms 
 were excited on all sides, but especially by the clerks." * 
 Siegfried of Mainz [1075] had practically to confess that 
 suspensions and excommunications had been totally 
 unavailing to put down concubinage.* After the synod 
 of Erfurt two attempts were made upon his life, and he 
 wrote to the Pope to pray him to relax his vigour. The 
 papal legate hardly escaped personal violence.^ The 
 bitterness of the strife was such as is stirred by great 
 social issues, and the ideal of the reformers was only 
 realized after the lapse of centuries. Throughout this 
 period a steady practical resistance was offered by the 
 lower clergy to the Gregorian rules ; it was a usual 
 practice of clerks to leave their prebends to concubines 
 
 ' For Peter Damiani's letter, cf. Harzheim, Concilia Oermaniae, iii. 197, 
 
 2 Lamherti Annales, SS. v., p. 238. 
 
 3 Berthold, Chr<m. a. 1075, SS. v., p. 278. 
 
 * Harzheim, iii. 176. « lb., 186, 7. 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY loi 
 
 and bastards, and a long series of conciliar decrees seems 
 to have been unavailing to root out the mischief.^ 
 
 It is only by taking into account the large demands 
 which Gregory was making upon human nature that we 
 can understand the attitude of the German prelates 
 during the war of the Investitvires. If the question had 
 been merely one of Investiture, the Pope might have 
 reckoned upon the support of the whole German Church. 
 If the question had been merely one of simony, the 
 prelates who were conscious of having purchased their 
 promotion, and the patrons who were in the habit of 
 selling their patronage, would doubtless have resisted 
 him. There would have been the same kind of opposi- 
 tion as was offered in England to parliamentary reform. 
 But the demand for the celibacy of the clergy struck far 
 deeper. It broke up families, and called for a noble but 
 inhuman abnegation. It was only attained b)'' a succes- 
 sion of sacriiices after many centuries of organized and 
 recognized hypocrisy, the injury of which is insufficiently 
 atoned for by the few fine flowers of Catholic sainthood, or 
 the single-hearted devotion of Catholic missionaries. Ger- 
 man prelates knew that in their resistance to Gregory they 
 would be supported by the mass of the secular clergy. 
 In 1076 twenty-four bishops and several abbots signed 
 the deposition of the Pope. In 1080 thirty bishops, 
 many of them Germans, met at Brescia to elect an Anti- 
 pope. In 1081 Gregory was forced, in response to the 
 demands of his vicegerent in Germany, Altmann of 
 Passau, to consent to temper the rigour of the canonical 
 discipline, which was driving the Bavarian clergy into 
 revolt.^ In 1085, at a meeting held at Perststat in 
 
 ' 1225: Harz., iii. 274; 1246: Harz., iii. 574; 1260: Harz., iii. 589; 
 1261 : Harz., iii. 606, 7. 
 
 2 Harz., Cone. Oerm. iii. 197. 
 
I02 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 Thuringia, the Bishop of Utrecht maintained that Henry 
 had been unjustly excommunicated, and the Archbishop 
 of Mainz supplied a sophistical premise to support that 
 conclusion. Although the balance of parties frequently 
 wavered, and the weight of the Saxon prelates was con- 
 sistently thrown into the papal scale, it is in the main 
 true that the German Church supported Henry against 
 Gregory. At the Council of Mainz, held in 1085, four 
 archbishops and seventeen bishops stood by the emperor, 
 while two archbishops and eleven bishops stood by the 
 Pope, and of these thirteen papal prelates eight came 
 from Saxon sees.^ 
 
 Nor were the Popes satisfied with the condition of 
 the German Church under Henry V. 
 
 " In your kingdom," wrote Pascal H. to Henry V. in 
 1110, "bishops and abbots are so occupied in secular 
 cases that they are compelled to frequent the county 
 courts, and to engage in soldiering. The ministers of 
 the altar have become ministers of the court." ^ When 
 Henry in 1110 proposed to Pascal that the question of 
 the Investitures should be settled by asking the clergy 
 to renounce their regalia, he must have known that he 
 was proposing a solution which would alienate the 
 
 ^ Harzheim, Gone, iii., p. 201-3. The Henrician party was thus com- 
 posed : Archbishops — Maiuz, Trfeves, Cologne, Bremen ; Bishops — Utrecht, 
 Lifege, Eichstadt, Freisingen, Eegensburg, Hildesheim, Paderborn,* Toul, 
 Strassburg, Basle, Minden,* Munster, Prague, Augsburg,* Constance,* 
 Spires, Bamberg. The Gregoriaus as follows : Archhishops — Salzburg, 
 Magdeburg ; Bishops — Augsburg,* Constance,* Paderborn,* Wurzburg, 
 Halberstadt, Merseburg, Zeitz, Meissen, Verden, Metz, Minden.* The 
 sees marked (*) were doubly represented. 
 
 2 Oesta Trevirorum, i. 222. An interesting comment on this verdict is 
 to be found in the Vita S. Norherti {Acta, S3, i. 826). The following 
 objections are made against the saint : " Quare insuper habitum religionis 
 pretenderet, cum in nuUo religio et proprietas convenireut? Et qua 
 ratione pretiosas vestes abjecisset cum mos terrae id non habeat, et 
 maxime apud nobiles qualis ipse erat, ut quam diu versantur in saeculo 
 agninis seu caprinis vestibus utantur." 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 103 
 
 German Church from any Pope who was unwise enough 
 to accept it, or from any emperor who was bold enough 
 to enforce it. It was logical to say that if the Investi- 
 ture was to be solely conferred by the spiritual authority, 
 the objects conferred by Investiture should be solely 
 spiritual. But to ask the Church to abandon its tem- 
 poralities was to ask it to renounce one of the main 
 instruments of its power, and Henry should have known 
 that this renunciation would never be made. When 
 Pascal II. was coerced to consent to his proposition, the 
 Burgundian clergy, under the leadership of Guido of 
 Vienne, rose against the Pope. The Privilegium was 
 denounced as a Pravilegium, and through the whole of 
 Germany the unlucky pontiff was branded as having 
 betrayed the true interests of his order. The bitter allu- 
 sions of Otto of Freisingen to the teaching of Arnold of 
 Brescia, who preached the doctrine of apostolic poverty, 
 are perhaps tinted by the recollection of the time in 
 which that doctrine was actually accepted by a reigning 
 Pope to the scandal of the orthodox.^ The Church 
 emphatically refused to renounce the regalia, and the 
 Concordat of Worms recognized the fact. 
 
 Though St. Bernard was able to rouse Germany to a 
 crusade, his pleading for apostolic simplicitj'' fell upon 
 idle ears. And when the struggle, which had only been 
 suspended by the Concordat of 11.22, broke out again at 
 the accession of Frederick I., the German prelates, who 
 had lost none of their secularity, and who were now 
 consulted more continuously than ever upon imperial 
 affairs, resolutely embraced the side of Barbarossa. When 
 Hadrian's legates asserted that the emperor held his 
 crown as a benefice from the Pope, the whole court of 
 the emperor indignantly repudiated the claim. When, 
 
 1 Otto Fris., Gesta Frid., lib. ii., c. 20. 
 
I04 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 in 1165, the emperor summoned a court of princes to 
 Wurzburg, to extort from them an oath of fidelity to 
 Pascal III., the German Church did his bidding. It was 
 true that Pascal was the second of the imperial Anti- 
 popes, and that he had been irregularly appointed by 
 Rainald of Dassel, Frederick's warrior-bishop of Cologne, 
 in a small meeting attended by three cardinals, without 
 consultation with the emperor. It was true also that 
 Rainald was not even in priest's orders, and that 
 Alexander III. had been accepted by the whole of the 
 French clergy. Yet the German prelates took the oath. 
 They may have been persuaded by false misrepresenta- 
 tions ; they may have been coerced, A few refused to 
 swear except upon conditions. One remarked that he 
 would sooner lose his regalia. Salzburg and Mainz were 
 recalcitrant. But the fact remains that Frederick carried 
 his clergy with him ; that his Italian wars were waged 
 mainly with troops furnished by the ecclesiastical 
 principalities ; that his chief generals and ambassadors 
 were the archbishops of his two most important sees ; ^ 
 that a council composed mainly, if not exclusively, of 
 ecclesiastical princes gave to the emperor in 1183 the 
 right of nominating, with the advice of the princes, a 
 suitable person to the see of Treves, if the electors should 
 not be agreed ; and that, despite the protracted and 
 strenuous nature of the conflict, there is no trace of any 
 anti-imperial literature having been produced during his 
 reign in Germany. The question, indeed, between 
 
 1 Frederick I., like Henry V., claimed the right of nominating arch- 
 bishops, bishops, and abbots in cases where the electors were divided. 
 The claim was based nominally, though quite unjustifiably, on the Con- 
 cordat of Worms (Giesebrecht, K.Z., vol. vi., p. 59, ed. Simpson). The 
 Concordat gave the emperor the right of deciding in cases of disp\ited 
 episcopal elections, according to the counsel of the metropolitan, and 
 other bishops of the province. 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 105 
 
 Alexander and Frederick involved no direct issue which 
 could be stated in abstract terms. The real issue was 
 the Lombard revenue, which menaced the territorial in- 
 dependence of the Curia. It was for this that Frederick 
 fought and that Milan fell, and it is not surprising if 
 the ecclesiastical princes of Germany, whose troops bad 
 so large a share in proving this great victory, should 
 have been blind to its true ecclesiastical implications. 
 
 The lesson of the Alexandrine conflict was not lost 
 upon the proud and astute Milanese who ascended the 
 papal chair in 1185 and assumed the title of Urban III. 
 With a heart full of bitterness against the man who had 
 once levelled his city to the ground and mutilated his 
 relations, Urban was in no mood to drop the torch of 
 quarrel which had been handed down to him by his 
 predecessor, Lucius II T. A disputed election at Treves, 
 the occupation of the Matildine lands and the county of 
 Bertinoro, the restoration of a number of German clerks 
 who had received their ordination at the hands of schis- 
 matics in the time of Alexander III., the coronation of 
 Frederick's eldest son Henry as emperor during his 
 father's lifetime, these were the questions in dispute 
 between Lucius and the emperor. The balance of 
 power in Italy was now decisively inclined against the 
 Pope. The emperor had made peace with the Lombard 
 league, was in open alliance with Milan, and had 
 married his son to the heiress of Sicily. The Pope 
 was an exile from Rome; the decree of the Lateran 
 Council in 1179 forbidding laymen to tax the churches 
 without consent of the bishop was openly defied by the 
 Lombard cities ; the finances of the papacy were 
 crippled by the imperial occupation of the patrimony. 
 Yet Urban did not despair of the situation. He saw 
 that the clouds of discontent were massing themselves 
 
io6 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 behind the Alpine barrier, and he determined to appeal 
 to the German Church. He expostulated against the 
 regalia and right of spoils, urging that these practices 
 so impoverished a see that they drove a new bishop 
 into extortion and rapine. He complained that the 
 emperor under the specious pretext of reform had 
 removed abbesses, appropriated their stipends, and by 
 declining to appoint successors had caused the dispersion 
 of several congregations. He objected to lay tithes and 
 to lay advocates. He refused to crown the young 
 Henry on the ground that two emperors could not co- 
 exist, neglecting the precedent of Lothair and Lambert 
 and Otto II. He cut the Gordian knot of the Treves 
 election by boldly appointing the candidate to whom 
 Frederick was opposed. 
 
 The Pope had chosen his ground cleverly. The 
 German bishops felt bitterly the injustice of the right 
 of spoils which robbed them of the testamentary free- 
 dom which was accorded to the rest of the clergy, and 
 which had been more than once expressly confirmed to 
 the members of those collegiate foundations which were 
 not immediately subject to the empire. The right to 
 receive the regalia was less obnoxious, but it was 
 against the canons of the Church, which ordered that 
 the property of a see should be managed in trust by an 
 oeconomus for the incoming bishop. The German 
 Church too had long suffered from the oppressions of 
 her advocates, and the appropriation of tithes to laymen 
 entailed a double disadvantage. In the first place it 
 sapped the revenues and impaired the utility of many 
 ecclesiastical foundations. In the second place it per- 
 petuated simony, for many candidates for preferment 
 were only able to realize their desires by consenting to 
 the appropriation by the patron of part of the tithe of 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY loT 
 
 their benefice. The burden thrown upon the bishops 
 and abbots by the Italian wars of the empire, the 
 violence of the emperor's eldest son Henry, the prospect of 
 a hereditary empire which was disclosed by Frederick's 
 scheme for the coronation of his son, all these causes pre- 
 disposed the German clergy to side with Urban. Philip, 
 Archbishop of Cologne, Conrad of Mainz, Volmar the 
 papal Archbishop of Treves, and twelve other bishops 
 deserted Frederick. The Pope made Philip of Cologne 
 his legate in Germany, 
 
 Frederick came over the Alps to stay the progress of 
 discontent. In two years he had made peace with 
 Milan, subdued Cremona, occupied the Matildine lands, 
 conquered the papal patrimony, imprisoned the Pope in 
 Verona. Master of Italy, he closed the Alpine passes 
 and forbade all communication with Urban. Then, with 
 characteristic directness, he svimnioned the papal legate, 
 Philip of Cologne, to his presence. " Lord," replied the 
 legate to the emperor, " there is no need that you should 
 doubt me, for you know that I always wish to stand for 
 justice ; for you have often proved my heart, and you 
 know that you may always trust me. But if I may 
 speak with the mouth of all bishops, if you will deal 
 but a little more gently with us, and in your imperial 
 liberty lighten our burden, you would find us more 
 devoted to you and more available for every purpose. 
 But now it seems to us that we are overwhelmed by 
 certain expenses, albeit not unjustly, yet immoderately. 
 And so the apostolic lord has thought it right to 
 object to the confiscation of churches on the death of a 
 bishop. For all the moveables and revenues of the 
 current year are taken away, so that the new bishop, 
 when he enters his diocese, finds it empty and exhausted. 
 If, then, having regard to justice and our service, you 
 
io8 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 will spare us in this matter, through your iraperial 
 clemency, we will humbly mediate between you and the 
 Pope, if not, we will on no account depart from the path 
 of truth." The emperor curtly refused the offer, reply- 
 ing that the bishops should be content with canonical 
 election, which had not been allowed to them by some 
 of his predecessors ; and as he saw that the legate was 
 stiU unmoved, he went on as follows : " Since I see that 
 you do not agree with me, I forbid you to come to the 
 court which is to be celebrated at Gelnhausen, where 
 there is to be an assembly of bishops." The archbishop 
 replied, "Let it be according to your pleasure."^ 
 
 In ^s^ovember, 1186, the assembly met at Gelnhausen. 
 It was large and representative, and it included Philip 
 of Cologne, who must have made his peace mth the 
 emperor. Frederick addressed the assembled prelates 
 and princes in a speech remarkable alike for its astute 
 omissions and for its frank avowals. He said nothing 
 of the regalia or the right of spoil, or the deprived 
 abbesses, or the patrimony of St. Peter ; but after pro- 
 fessing his general devotion to the papacy, he enume- 
 rated his complaints against the Pope. It had never 
 before happened that a bishop of the German Empire 
 had received consecration before he had been invested 
 by the sceptre with the regalia, yet the Pope had 
 hurriedly and unconstitutionally consecrated Volmar of 
 Treves, after a solemn promise, attested by three 
 
 ' The story of the interview between Philip of Cologne and Frederick 
 {Amoldi Chron., iii. 18) has been doubted by Scheffer-Boichorst, Der 
 letzter Streit, pp. 112, 197, 198 ; and by Lappenberg, SS., xxi. 159, No. 
 14. Giesebrecht, K.Z. vi. 653 (ed. Simpson), would also reject so much of 
 the speech of Frederick at Gelnhausen as rests entirely on Arnold's 
 testimony, thus rejecting the passage concerning tithes and advocates. 
 Scheifer-Boichorst, p. 115, if., and Prutz, Friedrich I., vol. iii., p. 266 ff., 
 do not go to this length. I cannot help thinking that Arnold's account 
 is substantially correct. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 109 
 
 credible envoys, that lie would do no such thing. 
 Further, Urban had retained the Archbishopric of 
 Milan after his appointment to the papacy, defraud- 
 ing the Church of a bishop and the empire of regalia. 
 Then the emperor went on to complain of the extra- 
 ordinary burdens which the papal see had laid upon the 
 clergy of the empire, of the contributions in money and 
 in kind which the Pope's agents extorted from churches 
 and monasteries, which were scarcely rich enough to earn 
 their daily bread, and afterwards he turned to consider 
 two of Urban's proposals to the German Church — the 
 abolition of lay tithes and lay advocates. " We know," 
 he said, "that tithes and offerings were originally 
 granted by God to priests and Levites. But when in 
 Christian times the churches were infested by foes, 
 powerful and noble men were given tithes as permanent 
 benefices that they might protect those churches which 
 were unable to protect themselves." He frankly con- 
 fessed that the abolition of lay advocates would, on the 
 face of it, appear to benefit the prelates, but he could 
 not believe that a custom consecrated by such high 
 antiquity and confirmed by so just a tradition would be 
 readily abandoned. 
 
 Frederick was right in his belief. The adoption of 
 Urban's proposals might have freed the Church from 
 much tyranny and extortion, but it involved unaccept- 
 able consequences. 
 
 If a churchman were disabled from enfeoffing tithes 
 to laymen, he would be debarred from using a very 
 convenient fund for enlisting or rewarding mihtary 
 retainers. Even if he were deprived of his official rio-ht 
 to impose charges on the see, the lay advocate would 
 still remain a formidable neighbour, and it was hardly 
 likely that he would relinquish his inherited privilege 
 
no THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 without a struggle. Again, every ecclesiastical foun- 
 dation by abolishing the lay advocate would lose a 
 hold, slight indeed but not entirely ineflfectual, over 
 one noble family, and add to the sum of the enemies 
 who \Aere always willing to plunder the priests. It 
 was better to keep a permanent official hereditary 
 robber, to make treaties with him, to limit his eggs, 
 and kine, and pigs, and wheat, and jurisdiction, and 
 then to suffer such injuries as he and his servants might 
 be pleased to inflict, than to lay oneself open to 
 the unauthorized inroads of miscellaneous neighbours.-^ 
 The papal bait was offered in vain.^ The German 
 Church rallied round the emperor as it had rallied round 
 him in the days of Henry IV. Letters were sent from 
 the bishops to persuade the Pope and the cardinals to 
 concession and forgiveness, and to represent the evils 
 which a quarrel between the empire and the papacy 
 would bring upon the spiritual princes of Germany. 
 The accusations which the Pope had levelled against 
 Henry were met by the remark, more casuistical than 
 true, that Henry occupied the papal states as a pro- 
 tector rather than a conqueror. The Pope was openly 
 charged with having sent letters to the Lombard bishops, 
 ordering them to refrain from helping Frederick in his 
 campaign against Cremona. The consecration of the 
 Archbishop of Treves before investiture was denoiinced 
 as an unprecedented insult to the empire. The exactions 
 of the papal legates were condemned ; while in an appeal 
 ad misericordiam addressed to the cardinals, which 
 was possibly judicious, probably sincere and certainly 
 
 'A Sententia PriTwipum delivered in the time of Henry IV. decides 
 that the Advocate of Tegernsee may not exact more than two measures 
 of com, two pigs, three casks of wine and meal, ten casks of beer, five 
 measures of oats for thirty horses {ff.B., iii., p. 185). 
 
 2 Scheffer-Boichorst, Friedrichs I. letzter Streit mit der Kurie, p. 15. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY iii 
 
 ignoble, it was represented that the princes, nobles, and 
 vassals, who held fiefs of the Church and who were ever 
 struggling to widen their possessions, would avail them- 
 selves of the first symptoms of ecclesiastical disloyalty to 
 seize upon the property of the Church and confiscate 
 it to their uses. So inextricably interwoven were 
 the interests of the Church and the empire/ 
 
 In the very darkest moments of the ninth and of the 
 tenth centuries letters were written from the city of 
 Eome by inconspicuous and sometimes even by corrupt 
 and violent men claiming to have been summoned by 
 the voice of God to preside over the Christian world. 
 The tradition of the papal office was the same, whether 
 its tenant was a statesman or a debauchee, and the 
 official language of John XII. does not essentially differ 
 from that of Nicolas I. There was, indeed, no moment 
 during the Middle Ages when the theoretical pretensions 
 of the papacy were abated, and if except certain schemes 
 for the abolition of the papal office doubtfully attributed 
 to Frederick II. or to his minister, Peter de la Vigne, 
 there is no sign that any German emperor desired to 
 diminish the spiritual control of the vicar of Christ over 
 the Catholic Church.^ The quarrel between the empire 
 and the papacy in the eleventh and in the twelfth cen- 
 turies was not only a contest between emperors and 
 popes, but also between popes and antipopes. In the 
 condition of belief at that time no emperor would have 
 dared to fling down the gauntlet to the papal office, 
 
 1 Weiland, vol. i., Nos. 315, 316, 317. 
 
 2 The letter of Frederick I. to the Archbishop of Treves {Archiv. f. K. 
 Oest. Oeschichtsquellen, xiv. 88) is probably a forgery, though it illustrates 
 opinion : "Quid eius cis Alpes timemus excommunicationem cum trans 
 Alpes ipsi vulgares parvipendunt ? Eome in sede sua vilipenditur sua 
 excommunicatio et nobis tam gravis est sua indignatio ? . . . Igitur quia 
 vos primas estis cis Alpes et cor regui ... summam et misterialem tunicam 
 Domini, id est ecclesiam, de manu illius Amorrei liberate." 
 
112 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 and the imperialists who fought the battles of Henry IV. 
 and Frederick I. were comforted by the reflection that, if 
 they were fighting against one pope, they were also 
 fighting on behalf of another. In the thirteenth cen- 
 tury the case was difi'erent. Frederick II. had no anti- 
 pope to oppose to Honorius III., Gregory IX., and 
 Innocent IV.; the college of cardinals had escaped the 
 control of the empire ; there was no convenient infor- 
 mality attaching to the election of his adversaries. It 
 was a source to him of serious weakness. Despite all the 
 tragical eloquence with which his chancery advertised the 
 fidelity of the emperor to the papal see, men doubted 
 and wavered. The orthodox rallied together and crushed 
 him as a new and unholy and revolutionary thing. Nor 
 was there any wavering in the allegiance of the German 
 Church to the papal see. The revival of the empire by 
 Otto I. stimulated the connection of Germany with the 
 Curia.-' Papal confirmation was sought for ecclesiastical 
 charters ; the decisions of a German council were con- 
 sidered to be fortified by the presence of a papal legate, 
 and the German canonists cheerfully subscribed to all 
 the doctrines of papal absolutism enunciated in the false 
 Decretals. The archbishops went to Rome for their 
 pallia, and submitted their creed to the examination of 
 the pontiff. The Pope's authority was required and 
 demanded for the foundation and delimitation of new 
 bishoprics, and during the reign of Otto I. two succes- 
 sive archbishops of ]\Iainz were papal legates. Thus 
 while Otto I. was drawing the German Church closer to 
 the monarchy, he was also reviving and stimulating its 
 communications with Rome. 
 
 ^ In the twenty-one years from Otto's assumption of the empire to the 
 death of Otto II. thirty-eight papal letters go to Germany, while in the 
 sixty-three years from Arnulf's to the revival of the empire we have only 
 thirty-four letters (Hauck, p. 244). 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 113 
 
 Men were not clear thinkers in the Middle Ages, and 
 it was long before the antinomy between the universal 
 and the national character of the German Church was 
 apprehended. The contemporaries of the Ottos were 
 devout believers in the sacred pre-eminence and even 
 in the infallibility of the popes, and there were doubts 
 expressed in Germany as to the right of Otto I. to depose 
 a vicar of Christ. When Burchard of Worms, in 1002, 
 compiled a kind of canonical florilegium, he was, while 
 recognizing the king's right to punish and correct clerks, 
 concerned to point out that the Pope is a supreme judge, 
 who may be asked to purge himself of an accusation, but 
 who may not be judged by any mortal save himself. The 
 contest between the papacy and the empire in the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries evoked a multitude of 
 treatises upon the relations of the two powers.^ Then 
 first an attempt was made to settle the relations between 
 the emperor and the Pope in the fantastic world of 
 medieval theory. It is unnecessary here to describe the 
 various analogical arguments which were used by these 
 writers, but it is well to remember that while the papal- 
 ists vigorously contended that the emperor was subject 
 to the Pope, the imperialists never averred that the Pope 
 was subject to the emperor. There is perhaps no better 
 illustration of the perplexities of the German mind upon 
 this question than the writings of Gerhoh of Eeichersberg, 
 who, born in 1093, lived through all the later stages of 
 the war of the Investitures into the heyday of Barbarossa's 
 contest with Alexander.^ After an education at Freising, 
 AJarburg, and Hildesheim, Gerhoh was appointed first of 
 
 ^ Libelli de Lite Imperatorum et Pontificum (M.G.). 
 
 - OerhoM Opera (ed. Migiie, Patr. Lat, vols, cxciii., cxciv.) ; De inven- 
 tione Antichristi (ed. Scheibelberger) ; Lihelli de Lite Imperatorum et 
 Pontificum, vol. iii. ; W. Eibbeck, F.D.G., vol. xxiv., pp. 3-80; xsv., 
 pp. 556-61. 
 
 VOL. II. H 
 
114 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 all to a mastership of the High School at Augsburg, and 
 then to a canonry by the imperialist Bishop Hermann of 
 Augsburg. Following his patron, he began life upon 
 the imperial side, but as time went on his opinions 
 changed. He went to Eome, made his peace with the 
 Pope, embraced the monastic career, and spent the last 
 thirty-seven years of his life (1132-69) as prior of 
 Reichersberg. He writes against Henry IV. with the 
 passion of a combatant, the zeal of a convert, the 
 bitterness of a recluse. No charge is too foul, no 
 language too violent for the antagonist of Hildebrand, 
 and the tragic ending of the old king evokes nothing 
 but a frigid and vindictive comment. With equal 
 vigour Grerhoh throws himself into the long-standing 
 c[uarrel with the seculars and the simoniacs. He denies 
 the validity of sacraments administered by seculars, by 
 schismatics, by simoniacs. Outstripping in zeal the 
 current opinion of churchmen, he argues his point both 
 in Germany and Italy, rebukes St. Bernard for his 
 neutrality, and actually incurs the suspicion of heresy 
 by the very extravagance of his orthodox professions. 
 At one time it seemed likely that Gerhoh would become 
 the enfant ternhle of the Curia. In 1125 he asked 
 Honorius II. why the weeds were not plucked up by 
 the roots, and the Pope drily but conclusively replied 
 that there were too many of them.-^ It is seldom 
 possible to instruct the fanatic, but Gerhoh was rescued 
 from the fanatic's doom by modesty, that finest gift of 
 the learner, and by a certain intellectual detachment 
 which is as rare as it is honourable. His views upon 
 the ecclesiastical and political questions of the day have 
 therefore the special interest, which attaches to the out- 
 pourings of an earnest, vigorous, and candid mind in no 
 
 1 Migne, Pair. Lat., cxciv., c. 1378. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 115 
 
 way concerned to preserve its own logical consistency. 
 In the bottom of his heart he is probably opposed to the 
 temporal power of the Church. Laymen, he intimates, 
 have no right to take tithes ; churchmen have no right 
 to take temporalities. The Pope is advised in one place 
 to renounce his temporal power over Eome, or to share 
 it with the emperor. The regalia of the Pope depend 
 upon the emperor's consent, and even the vicar of Christ 
 is not entitled to exercise criminal jurisdiction within 
 the city of Eome. Yet Gerhoh recoils from a con- 
 clusion which would have subverted the whole organi- 
 zation of the Christian Church. He admits the force of 
 that curiously assorted logical artillery with which the 
 medieval Church repelled her adversaries. He defends 
 the donation of Constantine against a Roman advocate 
 who attacked it on the insufficient ground that the 
 emperor was baptized by an Arian bishop.^ 
 
 "Christ," he says, "wore a white robe before Herod, 
 a purple robe before Pilate." It is a serious argument 
 for the union of spiritual and temporal powers in the 
 same hands. Temporal and spiritual possessions are 
 now so intermixed that a bishop would seem to be 
 despoiling the kingdom if he refuse to enfeoff church 
 property to knights, and it is a well-known maxim that 
 the Church cannot lose any possession which she has 
 long held.^ In one place it is suggested that a General 
 Council should be summoned to decide how the Church 
 contributions to the State should be paid. In another 
 place it is suggested that the Church should conceal 
 the temporalities, even as Rachel concealed the golden 
 idols which she carried from the house of Laban. The 
 
 ' Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. cxciv., 19 ; cf. De Invent. Antichrist!, c. 29. 
 - Lihur de Aedificio Dei, c. v. and vi. ; Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. exciv. col. 
 1210 ; and ih., ex., col. 1226. 
 
ii6 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part r 
 
 temporalities are discreditable, yet on the whole they 
 must be retained. Still the Church is full of flagrant 
 abuses. The two swords have been confounded ; prelates 
 exercise and delegate criminal jurisdiction ; tithes are 
 converted into lay benefices in order to provide prelates 
 with soldiery ; bishops go campaigning ; the cathedral 
 clergy have cast aside all restraints, and profligacy is even 
 more rife among clerks than among lajTuen. Nor are these 
 evils confined to Germany; they have their root in Rome 
 itself. Gerhoh inveighs against the papal city with all 
 the severity of a Bernard or a John of Salisbury. Since 
 Gregory was forced to hire soldiery to fight his battles, 
 the popes have become subservient to the avarice of 
 Rome. They buy their way to the chair by huge 
 donations to the Roman populace ; they are compelled 
 to take part in the civic feuds of Central Italy ; and to 
 maintain their position, they mulct Christendom. The 
 pomp and greed of the Roman legates have increased. 
 The appellate jurisdiction of the Pope has become an 
 open scandal. Its operations are corrupt, its assistance 
 is invoked to defeat the ends of justice. Appeals and 
 legations are already forbidden in Sicily, Apulia, and 
 Hungary. It is hinted that they should be forbidden in 
 Germany as well. Did not the Greek Church break off 
 from Rome because of its avarice ? Then there is the 
 corrupt transfer of parishes from one diocese to another, 
 of monasteries from the control of the bishop to the 
 control of the Pope. Concupiscence trafiics in ecclesias- 
 tical frontiers. Monasteries which are exempt from 
 episcopal control are in an unnatural position. It is as 
 if a hand should hang direct from the ear, or a foot from 
 the thigh. Yet if the exemption be of long standing, 
 we tolerate the anomaly. But of recent years the 
 papacy has been extending these exemptions and 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY ii7 
 
 plucking old monasteries from their dioceses, to the 
 destruction of discipline and the replenishment of the 
 papal coffers. New oaths are exacted by the Pope from 
 the prelates who receive their pallia, and, indeed, there 
 is grave danger of papal omnipotence. When the Roman 
 popes illustrate in speech, in writing, and in pictures the 
 thesis that Caesar is bound to them by homage, when 
 they prescribe how far he shall advance, where he shall 
 stay, what cities he shall attack, what rebels he shall 
 spare, are they not making themselves emperors and 
 the lords of emperors, are they not making the emperors 
 their vassals ? If the Romans are able to subdue the 
 emperor, and to deprive him of his crown and name, 
 let them do so, and submit to the rule of a thousand 
 masters. But if they allow him to bear the title and 
 to wear the crown, why should they dishonour him in 
 their words and in their paintings 1 The custom by 
 which the emperor holds the bridle and the stirrup for 
 the Pope should be discontinued, for it fosters pride in 
 the Pope, hate in the emperor. The true relation be- 
 tween the temporal and the spiritual jjowers is exhibited 
 in Constantinople, where the emperor and patriarch 
 dismount when they pass each other in the street, 
 and greet one another on equal terms. It is clearly 
 insinuated that if the harmonious co-operation of 
 Pope and emperor has been disturbed, it is the papacy, 
 not the empire, which is at fault. 
 
 Gerhoh views the Alexandrine schism with many 
 misgivings. On the whole he is on the side of 
 Alexander, for Alexander has been elected by the 
 majority of the cardinals, and has been accepted by 
 the Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch. But, on the 
 other hand, there are grave objections to him. He is 
 openly charged with having procured his election by 
 
ii8 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 entering into a conspiracy with the King of Sicily and 
 the Lombard towns, and if this accusation be indeed 
 true, then he cannot be accepted as Pope.^ He might 
 have dispelled the charge at the council of Pavia, but 
 he declined to appear, thus confirming the worst 
 suspicions. The Romans reply that the Roman see 
 is not bound to answer before any tribunal, and that 
 it owes its innocence to heaven alone. It is said that 
 the Pope alone can sit in judgment upon himself. 
 Gerhoh has not the fortitude to contradict this doctrine 
 in set terms, but he belongs to the middle party, who 
 desired a general council to put an end to the schism, 
 and to decide between the Victorines and their adver- 
 saries. The middle way is the safest.^ 
 
 But if Gerhoh is a critic, he is no rebel. Like 
 John of Salisbury and Bernard, he speaks out candidly, 
 but the whole fabric of papal autocracy might be 
 built out of his, as it might be built out of their, 
 admissions. At one moment he will say that an 
 unrightful command of a pope may be disobeyed. 
 At another moment he will admit the propriety of 
 the decision of a synod in 502 that the Pope is 
 responsible to heaven alone, adding, however, by 
 
 1 For this charge, cf. Otto Fris., Oesta^ \\., 52, 69, 71, 72 ; SS. xx., pp. 473, 
 484, 4S7, 488; SS. v., p. 126. 
 
 "^ Oerhohi opera, De Inventione Antichristi [ed. Scheibelberger] ; "On 
 Criminal Jurisdiction," pp. 82-9 ; " On Secularitj- of Clergy," pp. 89, 90 ; 
 "On the Abuse of Appeals," 105, 106, 111, 161 ; "On the Pallium Oaths," 
 166; "On Exempt Monasteries," pp. 172, 3; "On the Advance of the 
 Romans," pp. 106, 107, 108, 161, 171, 137 ; "On the Relations of Emperor 
 and Pope," pp. 174-177 ; "On the Simoniacal Transfer of Parishes," p. 149; 
 "On the Alexandrine Schism," p. 159 IF. For complaints as to the sub- 
 traction of benefices, canonries, and abbeys by the Popes, Ivo Carnot, 
 £p., 133; Bern., De Consid., iii. 1, 3; De Off. Episc, c. ix. ; Joannes 
 Sacerb., Polycr., vii. 19, 21. "On the Abuse of Appeals," Hild. Tur., Ep., 
 32 ; Bern., De Consid., iii. 2 ; Ep., 178, 189. "On Church Regalia," Otto 
 Fris., Chron. Prol., i. iv. ; Plac. Non., Lib. de Hon. Ecd. [Fez. ii., 2, 75]. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 119 
 
 way of qualification, "in those causes which touch 
 his office or person." With characteristic subtlety 
 he ventures to suggest that the word "heaven" may 
 apply to a council of the Church, for he can see no end 
 to the schism unless Alexander submits himself to a 
 general council. After all, did not Christ show his 
 wounds to the young who doubted ? Yet these pas- 
 sages of quaint and ingenious pleading only exhibit 
 the straits of the advocate lookina; about for some 
 orthodox buttress wherewith to support genuine con- 
 viction.'*. The old familiar and sounding periods slip 
 in unobserved at rhetorical moments, and give the case 
 away. " Who may refute him, since he is as another 
 Jeremy, appointed not only over churches but also over 
 kingdoms, to pull up and destroy, to scatter and dis- 
 sipate, to build and plant 1 " ^ When institutions are 
 supported by literary authority, a familiar and resonant 
 text acts upon the mind with a force equal to one of 
 the recurrent phenomena of nature. It is possible for a 
 moment to ignore the experience, but the sound besieges 
 the memory as the sights of nature besiege the eye. As 
 the oft-C[uoted text or decretal rolled into the mind of 
 Gerhoh, his freer speculations must have seemed mere 
 idle phantasmagoria. With no genius for logical 
 symmetry he was content to allow contradictory pro- 
 positions to lie side by side in his writings, as they lie 
 side by side in the Decretum of Gratian, and it is 
 possible to excerpt from the pages of the keenest 
 German critic of papal abuses in the twelfth century 
 a cento of passages which might have issued from the 
 mouth of a Hildebrand or an Innocent III.^ 
 
 ' De Invent. A ntichristi, p. 59. 
 
 2 Thus he admits the papal right to depose sovereigns {De Invent. Anti- 
 christi, c. 32). 
 
120 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 In 1198 the policy of the Hohenstauffen was put to 
 the test. The throne was practically vacant, for Henry 
 VI. had died, leaving but one infant son, Frederick, 
 and he was far away at Palermo. At the same time 
 Innocent III. ascended the pajjal chair. While Germany 
 was kingless, the cardinals of the Roman Church had 
 elected a king, who had the ability and the energy to 
 pursue the high autocratic ideal which he so clearly 
 conceived. Innocent resumed the policy of Hildebrand 
 with equal ardour and determination, but with greater 
 knowledge of men and of affairs, with greater tact and 
 with a more complete legal equipment. Few men were 
 more capable of extracting the greatest amount of profit 
 from the situation in Germany. There were two objects 
 which he set himself to pursue. In the first place, he 
 wished to prevent the crown going to Philip of Swabia, 
 the brother of Henry VI., who had been excommunicated 
 for his government of Tuscany, and whose election 
 would have carried with it the continued union of 
 Germany and Sicily under the Hoheustauff'en house. 
 In the second place, he wished to bring the German 
 Church under the more complete control of the papal 
 see, by influencing the composition of the chapters ; by 
 excluding laymen from a share in elections; by reviving 
 the rule that no translations could be made without his 
 consent ; by decreeing that candidates against whose 
 election there was any canonical impediment must be 
 postulated of the Pope, to whom alone belongs the right 
 of according dispensation ; by frankly providing to sees ; 
 by deposing prelates of whom he did not approve. The 
 success of these measures would have involved the 
 separation of the German Church from the empire, the 
 dissolution of that national union which had existed 
 since the time of Charles the Great, which Gregory 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 121 
 
 had been able to shake but not permanently to disturb, 
 and which, during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa, had 
 victoriously resisted the onslaughts of five popes. 
 
 The German princes had no intention of tamely 
 surrendering to Innocent III. or to the doctrines of the 
 Third Lateran Council. A rumour went about the 
 country that the Pope was aiming at the destruction or 
 humiliation of the empire. On May 28th, 1198, the 
 princes met at Spires and drew up a most memorable 
 manifesto. They informed Innocent that they had 
 chosen Philip to be Eoman emperor after the death of 
 Henry ; that there was but little opposition to their 
 choice, and that that opposition would be easily con- 
 quered. They asked the Pope to refrain from doing 
 anything which might injure the riglits of the empire, to 
 show favour to their lord and to his true servant Mark- 
 wald, Margrave of Ancona and Duke of Spoleto, since 
 his Holiness must surely know that they would come 
 without fail in all their power to demand the imperial 
 crown for their lord. In other words they assume 
 that the German king must necessarily be elected 
 Roman emperor; that the Pope has no part or lot in 
 the matter but to accept the choice of the German 
 princes, even if the German princes should choose a 
 man who was under the ban of the Church ; and they 
 hint to the Pope that the Italian conquests of the 
 Hohenstauffen house are to be sacred, and that the 
 German occupation is not to be disturbed. The docu- 
 ment received the assent of the patriarch of Aglei, of 
 four archbishops, twenty-three bishops and four abbots, 
 that is to say of a majority of the German prelates. 
 
 The Pope would have preferred that the German 
 princes should have entrusted him with mediatorial 
 powers, but the note of revolt was too unmistakable to 
 
122 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part r 
 
 be questioned. The Archbishop of Cologne, actuated 
 by purely temporal interests, had proceeded to elect 
 Otto, the son of Henry the Lion, Avith the concur- 
 rence of eight princes.^ On the 1st of March, 1201, 
 Innocent III. formally recognized Otto as lawful king 
 of the Germans, and declared himself ready to crown 
 him with the imperial crown. ^ And he sent a papal 
 legate to Germany to wage war against the house of 
 Hohenstauflfen. 
 
 The reports of the legate Guido illustrate the extreme 
 resentment which was at this time felt in Germany 
 against the papal chair. "When we had made our entry 
 with Otto into Cologne, we only met a few princes at 
 the appointed time. Some had not received our orders. 
 Some had received them, but could not come. Others 
 would not come. We infer that they would not come, 
 because they shut their towns and houses in order not 
 to receive our messengers, especially the men of Mainz 
 and Spires and Worms." And again, " You may be 
 convinced that if only the spiritual princes had from the 
 beginning been true to King Otto, or if they would now 
 give him the assistance of their counsel and their actions, 
 there would be no difficulty, or but little difficulty, in 
 discharging this mission, and the sunshine of success 
 wou.ld soon smile upon our arduous beginning."^ The 
 cardinal had put his finger upon the right spot. It was 
 the resistance of the German j)relates which made the 
 success of Philip the excommunicate a practical certainty. 
 They were loyal to the house of Hohenstauffen ; they 
 resented the interference of the Pope in German affairs ; 
 they held to the ancient theory of the equipollence of 
 the empire and the Papacy ; they detested and defied and 
 
 1 Weiland, ii., Nos. 18-22. - Re.;t. de Xeg. Imp., No. 32 ff. 
 
 ^ Reg. de Neg. Irap., Xo. .51. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 123 
 
 remonstrated against the Roman cardinal. "Where, they 
 wrote to Innocent, " ye popes have ye read; where, 
 holy fathers, cardinals of the whole Church, have ye heard 
 that your forefathers or their envoys have so interfered 
 in the election of Roman kings as to assume the role of 
 electors or of confirmers of elections ? We do not believe 
 that }^ou can find an answer."^ The Bishop of Spires 
 >ieized two papal couriers, imprisoned one and ordered 
 the other to be hanged.^ The city of Mainz refused to 
 receive Siegfried, Avhose election had been confirmed by 
 the Pope, and persisted in its refusal, although Innocent 
 threatened to transfer the archiepiscopal see to another 
 place, and took the opportunity to free the kingdom of 
 Bohemia from the province." It was in vain that 
 Innocent protested that he did not wish to humiliate the 
 empire. The distrust of him was universal. In the 
 spring of 1203 rumours were circulated to the effect that 
 he was dead, and that his successor had been chosen. 
 When Bishop Ludolf of IMagdeburg, who had resisted all 
 attempts to seduce him from the Philippians, received a 
 letter, which he had good reason to suspect contained 
 his excommunication, he gathered all his clergy round 
 him and appealed beforehand against the document to 
 Rome. Then he broke the seal. The Pope in fact was 
 trying to introduce not only a political but an ecclesias- 
 tical revolution. A canon of the Third Lateran Council 
 had forbidden offices or prebends to remain vacant over 
 six months. If the nomination belonged to the bishop 
 and he delayed to make it, then the chapter should make 
 it, and I'la: versa. If neither chapter nor bishop did theii^ 
 
 1 Reff. de Xeg. Imp., Xo. 61. 
 
 -Papal Letter, 3rd Oct., 1202; Reg. de Seg. Imp., No. 72 ; Papal Letter, 
 9th April, 12i>3 ; Ep., vi. 39 ; Papal Letter, 20th and 21st April, 1204 ; Ep., 
 vii. 51, 53. 
 
124 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 duty, then the metropolitan should make the appoint- 
 ment. There was nothing here said about the Pope, but 
 Innocent claimed that if the Metropolitan neglected his 
 duty, then the task of providiug for the vacant prebend 
 devolved upon the Curia. The contingency on the first 
 blush seemed to be remote, but Innocent put a con- 
 struction upon the term " vacancy," which made it a 
 common occurrence. He ruled that every prebend was 
 vacant which anyone should hold ui addition to his 
 original prebend. The ruling was in accordance with a 
 canon of the Third Lateran Council against pluralities, 
 but it was in the sharpest antagonism to existing 
 German practice. The German bishops had long seen 
 in the accumulation of prebends a means of increasing 
 their influence, and there was probably not a chapter- 
 house in Germany which would have satisfied the papal 
 test. By cleverly uniting the canon against pluralities 
 ■nith the canon on the right of devolution, Innocent 
 woidd be able to interfere with almost every nomination 
 to a prebend in Germany, so long as the archbishops, 
 bishops, and chapters remained unconverted on the 
 question of pluralities. We can prove that he did so 
 interfere in the dioceses of Bremen, Meissen, "Wurzburg, 
 Cologne, and Magdeburg. 
 
 Agaui he decrees that no person against whom 
 there is any canonical impediment can be elected to a 
 bishopric. Any such person must be postulated from 
 the Pope, who alone can grant dispensation. This 
 sweeps into the papal net bastards, persons under 
 thirty years of age, persons whose character or know- 
 ledge are deficient, persons who are already bishops 
 of another see.' What important limitations, how 
 revolutionary, how elastic ! In the very first years of 
 
 1 "Canon of the Third Lateran Council" (Mausi, Cone. Coll., t. xxii., 217). 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 125 
 
 Innocent III.'s reign the stipulations of the Third 
 Lateran Council had been most openly violated. There 
 had been a series of translations, and the papal dis- 
 pensation had not been asked for.^ At Merseburg the 
 illegitimate son of Margrave Dietrich was elected bishop 
 in 1201, and the practice of nominating young men 
 and unlearned men to important sees was often based 
 upon considerations of dynastic and military expediency 
 which could not lightly be disregarded. The Pope had 
 made for himself a legal avenue by which he might 
 approach and capture any see in Germany. If he 
 could not object youth or bastardy, he might at any rate 
 allege that character was tainted or learning insufficient. 
 There was no legal bar to stop the enslavement 
 of the whole German episcopacy. Yet there was one 
 strong practical obstacle which Innocent recognized. 
 As we have seen, the elections to bishoprics in 
 Germany continued to excite general popular interest, 
 for the bishops possessed political rights, ruled 
 as temporal princes, kept small armies, and usually 
 belonged to some prominent noble family. The par- 
 ticipation of the lay nobles and ministeriales of the 
 see in the election of a bishop tended to accentuate 
 its secular as opposed to its ecclesiastical interests. 
 When the Roman people shared in the election of the 
 Pope, their favours had sometimes descended upon a 
 boy, a ruffian, or a profligate, and until the Vatican 
 Decree of 1059 confined the election to the College 
 of Cardinals, the Popes had contributed almost as much 
 to scandalous chronicle as to serious history. The 
 principle of the Vatican Decree had never been applied 
 to Germany, and an election to the see of Cologne or 
 
 1 Gesta Innocentii, cap. 43 ff. ; and cf. Schwemer, Innocent III. und die 
 deutsche Kiirie, p. 82. 
 
126 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 of Mainz in the thirteenth century was rife with many 
 of those violent and corrupt influences from which 
 Nicholas II. had partially liberated the city of Rome. 
 Innocent III. saw in the continued existence of popular 
 election a barrier to the spread of hierarchical ideas. 
 He did not attempt a general manifesto against an 
 ancient usage, which there was no immediate chance 
 of suppressing, but he resisted it on particular occasions. 
 He prohibited the laymen of Mainz, under penalty of 
 excommunication, from giving more than "their due 
 assent " to an election.-' His nominee Bruno of Cologne 
 was mainly the choice of the chapter, and a curious 
 dialogue between a clerk and a layman exists to show 
 how bitterly the burghers of Cologne resented this inva- 
 sion of their political liberties.^ The layman argues that 
 he has done homage and sworn fealty to one arch- 
 bishop, and now the Pope and the clergy command 
 him to obey another. He asks whether the Pope has 
 power to absolve him from an oath which he has law- 
 fully and duly offered. He contends that no election 
 can take place except in the presence of the nobles of 
 the land, the beneficed men of St. Peter, and the 
 chief officials of the bishop, and even conceding that 
 the bishop can be elected so far as he is an ecclesiastic 
 in the absence of the laymen, he asks how the clergy 
 has power "uithout lay consent to ajDpoint a duke who 
 exercises secular jurisdiction. These considerations 
 really go to the root of the difference between the 
 Curia and the German Church. Innocent wished for 
 a spiritual hierarchy sharjoly divided from the lay 
 world, strictly disciplined, strictly professional, wholly 
 
 1 Epist., ii. 24. 
 
 ^ " Dialogus Cleriei et Laici contra persecutores ecclesiarum," ed. Waitz 
 {Chron. Reg. Col, p. 316 ff.). 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 127 
 
 subordinate to himself. The German Church was none 
 of these things. The prelates were secular princes, 
 •closely connected with the imperial government, but 
 bent also on advancing their own territorial interests. 
 If these interests should coincide with the policy of 
 the Curia, well and good ; but the coincidence was 
 necessarily accidental, the tie necessarily fragile. We 
 have only to study the career of the leader of the 
 papal party in Germany, Adolph of Cologne, during 
 the period of the disputed election to be assured of 
 this. He embraced the cause of Otto in 1201 because 
 the city of Cologne had long been connected by com- 
 mercial ties with England, and because the Welf 
 candidate was the nephew of the English king. He 
 threatened to desert the cause of Otto in 1202, but 
 was recalled by the firm attitude of the city, which 
 made its allegiance to the archbishop dependent upon 
 his fidelity to the papal king.^ Finally he deserted 
 Otto for Philip in 1204, braving excommunication and 
 deposition as soon as he was convinced that PhiHp's 
 was the winning side.^ 
 
 We have dwelt at some length upon this episode 
 of the contest between Philip and Otto, because it 
 brings out into a clear light the real attitude of the 
 German Church towards the greatest of the Popes. On 
 two separate occasions the tranquil loyalty of the 
 ecclesiastical princes had been seriously disturbed by 
 the papacy. Gregory the Great deposed an emperor, 
 and struck hard at the two most engrained abuses of 
 
 ^ Weiland, ii,, No. 24. Cologne manifested its independence of the 
 Papacy by remaining a year and five months under interdict, 1215 
 {Chron. Reg. Col, Cont. III., 1215). 
 
 2 Chron. Reg. Col., Cont. III., 1204, p. 219, "Coloniensis vero Episcopus 
 sacramentum quod dudum Ottoni fecerat parvipendens et perjurium it 
 «xcommunicationem Apostolici non metuens ad eundem Philippum venit." 
 
128 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part I 
 
 German clerical life, simony and marriage. National 
 spirit and loyalty, natural affection and lust, avarice 
 and ambition, and all the forces of sheer conservatism,, 
 as well as those which make for a low view of life, 
 fought against Mm. He failed to spiritualize the 
 German Church. Innocent III. renewed the attempt, 
 and he also shot a double shaft, wounding the loyal 
 susceptibilities of the princes by his interference in 
 the election of the German king,^ rousing their deep 
 resentment and alarm by his legates, his counter 
 candidates, his new-fangled application of the old 
 doctrine of papal autocracy. He could no longer rely 
 upon the prestige of excommunications. That weapon 
 had been too often used to subserve private and family 
 spite.' It had lost its magic and its terror. But in 
 revenge he could play upon the ambitions of the ecclesi- 
 astical princes, some of whom were intent on building 
 up small states, and might wish to escape the drain 
 of the Italian wars of the empire. He was assisted 
 too by a series of accidents. The murder of Philip in 
 1208 enabled Otto to mount the throne. The loyalty 
 of the South Germans to the house of Hohenstauffen 
 helped him to displace Otto for Frederick,^ when Otto 
 had shown himself to be an emperor after the old 
 pattern of Barbarossa. But the decisive factor in these 
 transactions is not the Pope but the German princes. 
 
 1 For the protest against the popes concerning himseK with the German 
 election, of. Recj. de Seg. Imp., 'So. 61. 
 
 2 There was concihar legislation against this abuse in 1225 (Harzheim, 
 iii. 521, and of. Harzh., iii. 561). We are reminded of the way in which 
 the Inquisition in Spain was made to serve the purpose of family vendetta 
 (cf. Eanke, Die Osmanen und die Spanische Monaruhie, p. 199). 
 
 ^ The formation of a Frederician party after the excommunication of 
 Otto in 1211. Cf. Ficker, Reg., 646 b.; H.B., i. 195 ; Ann. Col, Winckel- 
 mann, 499. If Frederick had been three hours later [Sept. 1212] the 
 Bishop of Constance would have declared for Otto (Ficker, Reg., 670 g). 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 129 
 
 It is true that both Otto and Frederick made amjile 
 concessions to the Curia, but some of those concessions 
 they both could and did renounce vidthout forfeiting 
 any considerable amount of support in Germany. What 
 did the German princes care for the states of the 
 Church ? What would they endure to prevent the 
 personal union of Sicily and Germany, or to preserve the 
 papal suzerainty over the old Norman kingdom ? In 
 part indeed the demands of the Curia coincide with 
 the interests of the German Church. The German 
 princes too wished for a renunciation of the right of 
 spoUs and regalia, and for greater freedom of capitular 
 elections. But the princes were now strong enough to 
 make terms for themselves, and they saw that a com- 
 pact between the king and the Curia was but a brittle 
 guarantee. It was not enough for them that the young- 
 Frederick was the choice of Innocent III., and that 
 all the influence of the Curia was thrown upon his 
 side ; they must treat with the man himself, and 
 Frederick knew it. He came to Germany prepared to 
 bribe. He bribed the princes to help him against 
 Otto ; he bribed them again to put the king's crown 
 on his o-mi head; he bribed them a third time to 
 recognize Henry as his successor. He bribed them in 
 money which had been supplied him by the king of 
 France, and never, as he afterwards confessed, was 
 money better spent. And he bribed them also by a 
 series of concessions. These concessions show whither 
 the wind was blowing. They tend to confirm the 
 territorial powers of the German prelates. To obtain 
 them the prelates were willing, if not openly to sacri- 
 fice at any rate to imperil the interests of the Curia. 
 They crowned Frederick's son Henry in 1220 in 
 manifest violation, so it seemed to Honorius III, of the 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
130 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part l 
 
 emperor's oath to tlie Pope/ and when the struggle 
 broke out between Frederick and the Papacy, the aim 
 of the German princes was to mediate between both 
 powers, and to extract the greatest amount of profit 
 from the conflict. 
 
 When Frederick was excommunicated by Gregory IX. 
 in 1239 the German spiritual princes wrote a letter to 
 the Pope, which proves how far removed they were from 
 blind acquiescence in the papal policy. They pointed 
 out that, as priests of the Church and at the same time 
 princes of the empire, they were specially bound to 
 mediate between the two powers; that at the outbreak 
 of the quarrel they had betaken themselves to the 
 emperor in order to move him to return to the Church ; 
 that the emperor had laid before them the complaints 
 of the Pope and his answers, and had declared him- 
 self ready to repair any omissions according to the 
 judgment of the princes. They advised Gregory not 
 to embitter the emperor, which would bring religion 
 into great danger. However little they might believe 
 that the Vicar of Truth would protect the manifest 
 calumny of seditious rebels against the empire, they 
 were bound to confess that the general opinion 
 supported the emperor's contention that the Pope 
 had merely proceeded against him in the interests of 
 the Milanese and their allies. It was at any rate a 
 very serious matter that the papal legate at Milan, 
 Gregory of Montelongo, was seeking in every way to 
 seduce the loyal from their allegiance to the empire, as 
 the emperor had shown through letters and witnesses. 
 
 ^ Winckelmann, p. 20, denies that the ecclesiastical princes sold the 
 interests of the Curia in 1220 because they confirmed the old treaties of 
 the emperor and the Pope, and especially the partition between the two 
 kingdoms ; but cf. Schirmmacher, ii. 452. 
 
CHAP, x] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 131 
 
 Although they were devoted to the Eoman Church, 
 they could not desert the emperor without breaking 
 their troth to the empire. The Pope must not allow 
 himself to be seduced by the false representations of a 
 few princes who were merely seeking their own private 
 advantage.^ This was not merely the attitude of a few 
 chosen adherents. The princes met together in Ger- 
 many in the presence of the emperor's son Conrad, 
 bound themselves by an oath to the emj^eror, and 
 promised to reconcile him to the Pope.^ In the course 
 of April and May, 1240, an identical note was sent to 
 Gregory from eight German bishops lamenting the 
 discord which had broken out between Pope and 
 emperor, pointing out that it was retarding the 
 crusade, and producing enormous unheard-of evils.' 
 While protesting their veneration of the Eoman 
 Church, the bishops remark that the emperor has 
 promised to abide by the law, and that they are send- 
 ing an envoy to the Pope to propose the basis of an 
 agreement. The Archbishop of Mainz and the Arch- 
 bishop of Augsburg joined in the prayer for peace in 
 letters of substantially the same import. It was clear 
 at any rate that in 1240 the German Church resented 
 the high-handed proceedings of the Pope. Again the 
 excommunication of the emperor was not published in 
 Germany until two years after it had been issued by 
 the Pope. It was then only published by the Arch- 
 
 1 Ticker, Reg., 2433 ; H.B., v. 398. The princes who sign are probably 
 the Archbishop of Salzburg, the Bishops of Passau and Freising, and the 
 Abbot of Tegernsee. The allusion at the end is probably to the prelates- 
 elect of Cologne and Lifege, who were then at Rome. 
 
 "-Ami. ErpL, SS. xvi. 33, 10. 
 
 ^Weiland, ii.. No. 225-232; Cologne, Worms, Miinster, Osnabruck, 
 Bichstadt, Strassburg, Spires, Wurzburg ; and cf. Ficker, 2fiU. d. Inst, 
 far Oestr. G. Forsch., iii., 338 ff. 
 
132 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 bishops of Cologne and of Mainz, both of whom had 
 joined in the national protest against the Pope two 
 years earlier, and whose change of attitude cannot be 
 explained upon the hypothesis of any respectable 
 motive.^ The sentiment of the clergy in Bavaria 
 was so markedly callous that the papal legate, Albert 
 of Bohemia, had to report that they did "not care 
 a bean " for sentences of suspension and excom- 
 munication,^ and the proposal to elect the King of 
 Denmark as King of the Romans was rejected by the 
 steadfast loyalty of the German Church to Frederick. 
 Time no doubt brought round some waverers to the 
 Pope. Men tired of the struggle, and the papal 
 legates busily fed their misgivings. When Albert 
 said to the Duke of Bavaria that he and his fellow- 
 electors had lost their right of electing a king because 
 they had not exercised it within the lawful time, 
 and that the Roman Church, which could not long 
 go without a catholic advocate, might appoint a Gaul 
 or a Lombard or some one else to be king, patrician 
 or advocate, without consulting the Teutons, the duke 
 answered, "Would that our Lord Pope had already 
 done so. For this I would renounce both my votes 
 and record the fact in a public instrument given 
 to the Church on my own behalf and on behalf of 
 my heirs." ^ 
 
 This sentiment was no doubt not peculiar. People 
 began to wonder why Germany should endure so much 
 for an absentee emperor. But, nevertheless, there 
 
 ^ Reg. Konrad, 4439 a. 
 
 ^ H.B., V. 1032, " Dicvint enim canonioi Bavarie omnesque alii praelati 
 ex quo de siiis beneiiciis sunt securi posthac non timebunt tonitrua et 
 fulmina Eomanorum quia non darent pro ipsorum suspensionis et 
 excommunicationis sententiis fabam." 
 
 ^ Hofler, Albert von Behaim, p. 16. 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY I33 
 
 remained a strong resentment against the Pope.^ The 
 deposition of the emperor at the Council of Lyons in 
 1245 was met by a protest on the part of the princes, 
 the text of which has unfortunately not come down to 
 us ^ ; but it is plain that the ecclesiastical princes of 
 Germany remained true to the doctrine which had 
 been so clearly stated by Frederick Barbarossa, " The 
 kingdom and the Qcipire are held from God alone, 
 through the election of the princes." The Pope could 
 neither appoint nor could he depose the elected German 
 king. His rtle was passive. He was bound to confer 
 the imperial crown upon the choice of the princes. 
 The German king was necessarily destined for the 
 Eomau empire. 
 
 By degrees, however, the machinations of the papal 
 agents wrought a change in the temper of the princes 
 of the Church. The Italian legates represented to the 
 Germans that the victory of Frederick would involve 
 the break-up of the elective and federal constitution ; 
 they menaced the supporters of the "debauched heretic" 
 with every terror in the ecclesiastical armoury, and 
 they poured money into the scale. In 1246 the three 
 ecclesiastical electors, the Archbishop of Bremen and 
 the Bishops of Strassburg, Spires and Metz, met 
 together to elect a counter-king to champion the prin- 
 ciples of election and of anarchy. Their choice fell 
 upon a Thuringian nobleman, Henry Easpe, who, after 
 
 1 E.B., V. p. 1131. Frederick tells the clergy and citizens of Worms to 
 resist the exaction of a fifth part of all ecclesiastical revenues. " Sustinere 
 non possimus ut ecclesie Germaniae libertas, que hactenus inconcussa 
 extitit, per sacerdotes sacrileges inconsuetis angariis conculcetur." 
 
 "^ Ann. Stad., SS. xiv. 369, 42, "Qua sententia (depositioiiis) per 
 mundum volante quidam principum cum multis aliis reclamabant 
 dicentes : ad papam non pertinere imperatorem eis vel instituere vel 
 destituere sed electum a principibus coronare." 
 
134 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part i 
 
 an unexpected victory over Conrad, died in the follow- 
 ing year. But the old Guelf cause survived his death, 
 and in the autumn of 1247 William of Holland, an 
 obscure squire, scarce twenty years of age, was elected 
 King of the Romans to continue the strife. The three 
 ecclesiastical electors again signalized their defection 
 from the Swabian house, and indeed by this time the 
 spirit of anarchy had so deeply engrained itself in the 
 political morals of Germany, that even the presence of 
 Frederick himself would have failed to exorcise it. But 
 the motives which guided the leaders of the German 
 Church at this crisis of European history were not 
 derived from the principles of the New Testament or 
 even from those of ultramontane theology. It is true 
 that the prelates were willing to co-operate with the 
 Papacy in a campaign against the right of spoils, the 
 exercise of which affected their dignity and their 
 pockets ; that they never dreamed of questioning the 
 spiritual authority of the Pope ; that they promoted the 
 Inc[uisition, which was even more savagely conducted 
 here than elsewhere ; and instigated a cruel and un- 
 necessary crusade against the miserable and unimportant 
 tribe of the Stadingi. But while they would allow no 
 speck to rest upon the brightness of the armour of their 
 faith, they were mainly concerned in the consolidation 
 of their earthly principalities. Pride, self-interest, and 
 tradition fortified them in their resolution never to cede 
 their control over the imperial election. They had once 
 thought that it was menaced by the Pope ; they now 
 thought that it was menaced by the Swabians. A 
 federal constitution, headed by a weak or absentee 
 emperor, was the condition of their political independ- 
 ence. They had refused to make the throne hereditary 
 at the request of Henry VI.; they had played Otto 
 
CHAP. X] THE CHURCH IN GERMANY 135 
 
 against Philip, Frederick against Otto ; they now played 
 Henry and William and Eichard and Alphonse against 
 the cause of the autocrats. In the event they were 
 justified, for whUe the emperor's authority was attenu- 
 ated to a shadow, the substance of power remained 
 with the court of the princes, of whom some forty 
 were laymen, while more than sixty were clerks.^ 
 
 ^ Ficker, Yom Reichsfiirstenstande, pp. 264, 372 fF. 
 
PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY. 
 
 jMany pages have been written upon the contrast 
 between the genius of the Latin and Teutonic peoples. 
 The spirit of order and discipline is generally attri- 
 buted to the Latin, the spirit of romance and mysticism 
 to the Teuton. While the Latins have given law to 
 Europe, the Teutons have poured enthusiasm and vigour 
 and individuality into the caldron. The one has been 
 the regulative, the other the impulsive force in European 
 progress. The one has written the prose, the other 
 has dreamed the poetry of the -nest. Such contrasts 
 are often drawn, but they must be accepted ■^■ith 
 reserve, for historical generalities never fit all cases 
 or all ages. The Germans are at the present moment 
 the most highly disciplined race in Europe, whereas 
 in the tenth century they were perhaps the least 
 obedient. The political genius of Rome has fled to 
 London ; the Crusades, the most romantic of all 
 enterprises, was the achievement of the Latin races ; 
 the Divine Comedy, the most deeply felt ^dsion of 
 medieval Christianity, was the dream of a Latin poet. 
 Still the history of the formation of the European 
 
PT. II, CH. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY i37 
 
 States may be regarded as the fusion of undisciplined 
 Teuton force and enterprise into the civilized and 
 ordered mould of a Latin church and a Latin empire. 
 But by a curious turn of fortune, the Teuton found 
 himself called upon to assume the political direction 
 of a Latin country ; to legislate for men who already 
 possessed a body of laws which was far too good for 
 them to realize, and far too elaborate for him to 
 comprehend ; to police with his rude but honourable 
 vigour an old but demoralized civilization. 
 
 The Italy into which Otto I. descended was a ^ 
 land of ruins. The ninth century had been a lawless 
 and a troubled age ; and the first half of the tenth 
 century had not been much better. In the seventy- 
 five years preceding Otto's first campaign, four 
 Italians, one Frenchman, three Germans, and four 
 Burgundians had tried and failed to rule the 
 country. The Saracens had, in the ninth century, 
 cut the arteries of Italian civilization. They were 
 settled in the south of Italy on the Garigliano ; 
 they held Narni, Rieti and Nepi, and for thirty years 
 dominated Central Italy, leaving behind them traces in 
 local nomenclature which last to this day. For one 
 hundred years they occupied Fraxinetum and converted 
 Provence and Piedmont into howling wildernesses.^ 
 Even John VIII. , the most vigorous diplomatist and 
 warrior of his time, the Julius II. of the ninth century, 
 who rallies the south against the infidels, and beats them 
 at sea, is forced to own their power and to pay them 
 tribute. If the Saracens prey upon the peninsular in 
 the ninth century, the Hungarians threaten to wreck it 
 in the tenth. In 924 they burnt down Pavia, the Lom- 
 bard capital, the centre of juristic studies in North 
 
 ' Flach., Origuies de I'Ancienne France, vol. ii., bk. iii., c. 3. 
 
 r 
 
138 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 Italy, and the rude Latin hymn sung by the watchmen 
 on the walls of Modena preserves the haunting memory _': 
 of that hour.^ In such an age the arts of peace were 
 impossible. The only form of classical poetry in Rome 
 had long been that of sepulchral inscriptions, and even 
 these had ceased to be written with eleo-ance after the 
 end of the fourth century. The only form of pictorial 
 effort was the mosaic, and the workers in this, the 
 most conventional of arts, had long lost the richness ^ 
 of tone and the scope and freedom of composition 
 which characterize the famous fifth-century frescoes 
 at Ravenna. The race of architectural popes had died 
 out almost as completely as the race of theologians. 
 The Germanic portion of the population seems to 
 have lost vigour, corrupted by climate, luxury, or 
 incalculable misfortune. In the south the desperate 
 struggles of Saracens, Greeks, and Lombards, fought 
 over the wild Apulian hills or in the crowded cities 
 of the coast, in the centre the strife between the \^ 
 Barons of the Campagna and the Papacy, put a stop to 
 all intellectual and moral progress. With the single 
 exception of Gregory of Tours, there are no medieval 
 writers who portray a society so lost to every principle 
 of morality, as do Erchempert, the chronicler of South 
 Italy during the ninth, and Luitprand, the chronicler of 
 North and Central Italy during the tenth century. 
 The Church had not escaped the universal contagion, 
 The picture of the Italian ecclesiastic of the tenth -^ 
 century, left to us by Ratherius of Verona, recalls the 
 famous satire of St. Jerome, written some six centuries 
 earlier. He is a luxurious feudal baron, treading soft 
 carpets, living on delicate food, destitute of all moral 
 
 ' Ozanam, Documents inedits pour servir A I'histoire litt&aire de I'ltalie, 
 p. 64 ; Du Meril, Poesies populaires anUrieures au xii. silcle, p. 264. 
 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITAL V 139 
 
 principle.-' The annals of Farfa present the still 
 blacker picture of a monastery which for several 
 years averts reform by poisoning every one who is 
 sent to reform it. The land is utterly without 
 political direction. The Lombard duchy of Bene- 
 ventum had split into three principalities. The Greeks 
 held a slice of its territory on the south-eastern coast. 
 Friuli, Spoleto, and Ivrea all struggled to obtain the 
 hegemony. Four Germans since the death of Lewis II. 
 [875], Charles the Bald, Carloman, Charles the Fat, and 
 Arnulf, intervened in Italian politics, exercising ephemeral 
 half-acknowledged authority. The political force of the 
 Papacy died with John VIII. , and for thirty years of the 
 tenth century the Pope became the sport of licentious 
 women or the underling of a municipal tyrant. The 
 caustic Bishop of Cremona, generalizing from the uncon- 
 tradicted experience of many generations, summed up 
 the situation in the famous saying, " The Italians wish 
 to have two lords, in order that they may coerce the 
 one by the terror of the other. "^ 
 
 The "iron age" of Italian history was no time for 
 legislation. A few brief capitularies of the Spoletine 
 dukes, Wido and Lambert, have survived from the 
 wreck, and if others were issued, they were unknown 
 to the diligent Pavian lawyer, who made his collec- 
 tion of capitularies some time between 1000 and 
 1014. There had been indeed no lack of capitularies 
 
 iRatherius, De Cont., Can. ii., 2 (opp. 367), "Quaerat et aliquis, cur 
 prae ceteris gentibus baptismo renatis contemptores canonicae legis et 
 vilipensores clericorum sint magis Italici.... Quoniam quidem libidino- 
 siores eos et pigmentorum venerem nutrientium frequentior ^lsus et vini 
 eontinua potatio et negligentior disciplina facit doctorum." For modern 
 accounts of the state of ecclesiastical morals in Italy during this period, 
 cf. Giesebrecht, De Utterarum stttdiis apud Italos primis mediiaevi saecuUs, 
 and Dresdner, Die Italienische Geistlichkeit des 10 wid 11 Jahrhiinderts. 
 
 ^ Luitprandi Antapodosis, i., c. 37. 
 
I40 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 in the days of the early Carolings. Several of them were 
 specially applicable to Italy, and in theory it would seem 
 that all the general capitularies made for the Frankish 
 realm were intended to hold good in Italy as well. 
 But if they were applicable, they were not applied. 
 How could edicts framed in Francia for a Frankish 
 society, saturated with Frankish ideas and Frankish 
 terms — trustis, mitium, fredus- — really affect Italian 
 practice 1 They might be recorded in collections of 
 Italian law, they might be commented on by school- 
 masters and jurisconsults, but their interest was academic 
 rather than actual. Before the eleventh century there is 
 no trace of them in Italian charters and documents. 
 The other capitularies, those made for Italy, or in Italy, 
 especially the capitularies of Pippin and Lothair, have 
 a different fortune. These accord more closely with the 
 spirit and vocabulary of the Lombard law — a body of 
 customs first codified by Eqtharis in 640, and progres- 
 sively improved and expanded by his more enlightened 
 successors. But the scope of these edicts is not restricted 
 to Lombardy. They never form part of the Lombard 
 edict. They are intended to be valid over all Italy. 
 They are part of an imperial scheme of legislation. But 
 in the political chaos of the ninth and tenth centuries, 
 there was little care bestowed upon this precious deposit, 
 and the anarchy of the times is reflected in the disordered 
 texts of the manuscripts. All the early collections of 
 capitularies made in Italy are private compilations. 
 There is the greatest variety of text and arrangement. 
 Omissions are frequent, and are dictated by the taste of 
 the copyist. Canons of councils, statutes of abbots, 
 chapters of canonical law, scraps from the Salian, the 
 Eipuarian, the Bavarian and Lombard codes, constitutions 
 of emperors, glosses of jurisconsults, passages from St. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 141 
 
 Augustine, judgments of judges, private notes — all this 
 miscellaneous farrago finds its way among the capitu- 
 laries. In those days anything or everything written 'B 
 may be held to be law in Italy. There are, however, ^i^ 
 four manuscripts written in Italy, and of the eleventh 
 century, which contain a collection of capitularies free 
 from the confusion of the earliest manuscripts, and 
 presenting the material in practically the same chrono- 
 logical order. This collection was probably made by a 
 master of Pavia for the use of schools somewhere in 
 the first fourteen years of the eleventh century. It 
 is known as the Capitulare or the Liber Papiensis} 
 This book — the famous product of the Pavian School 
 of Jurisj)rudence — is the first sign of revived interest 
 in legal matters after the long agony of the iron age. 
 It is not the collection which would have been made 
 by a practising lawyer. It is not the collection which 
 might have been made by an exact historian. There 
 is much repetition, there is much contradiction, there 
 is much that is incomplete, there is much that is anti- 
 c[uated, there are several mistakes. The capitularies 
 of Lewis II. are attributed to Lothair, and so are the 
 Worms capitularies of Lewis the Pious. The com- 
 piler does not always understand the words of the 
 Caroling period ; he does not always know what a 
 capitulary is, for some canons of the Church and some 
 fragments of Italian custom find their way into his 
 collection. StiU the formation of this collection marks 
 an epoch. The Capitulare was bound up with the 
 Lombard edict, and the two collections together formed 
 a Corpus Juris Italici, a collection of all the written 
 
 1 Merkel, Oeschichte des Langobardenrechts ; Boretius, Die Capitularien 
 im Langohardenrdch, and Praefatio ad Lihrum Papiensem; L.L. iv., 
 p. xlvi. ff. 
 
142 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 laws, Lombard and Frankish, whicli had been given 
 to Italy by her barbarian invaders. They were the 
 subject of much learned and acute dissertation, which 
 has been preserved to us in a glossed collection made 
 for the use of the Pavian schools between 1019 and 
 1037. But how meagre and obscure is the text, how 
 ample and ingenious the comment ! We feel that 
 these Pavian jurists were struggling not so much with 
 a living body of law as with a collection of legal 
 scraps belonging to various times, stages, and civili- 
 zations extending over a period of more than three 
 hundred years, inadequate to express the needs of a 
 society which had passed through the caldron of social 
 dissolution. To interpret and harmonize these scattered 
 texts, and to fill up the lacunae, was a task which might 
 be performed in one of two ways. You might seek light 
 from Lombard and Germanic custom, or you might 
 seek light from Eoman law. The judges of the Sacred 
 Palace at Pavia, whose comments upon the Liher 
 Papiensis have come down to us, appear to have been 
 divided into two schools. There were the Eomanists, 
 who held that the Roman law had a general supple- 
 mentary force, and that Rotharis himself had in- 
 tended that the curt definitions of his edict should 
 be interpreted by the principles of Eoman jurisprudence.^ 
 There were the Lombardists, who maintained that the 
 Lombard law was self-sufficient and self-explanatory. 
 The Eomanists won the day. They were, it is true, 
 extravagantly unhistorical. They accredited to poor 
 Eotharis an acquaintance with the Novels ; they in- 
 
 ^ Lib. Pap. Exp. ad Roth., 1, sect. 2 ; Grim., 4, sect. 3; Wid., 5, sect. 4, 
 "Antiqui dicebant quod haec lex nihil inde preciperet, ideoque juxta 
 Romanam legem, quae omnium est generalis, hoc esse definiendum cense- 
 bant." Cf. Fertile, Storia del diritto Italiano, i., pp. 401, 402 ; Exp. ad 
 Jtoth., 359, sect. 3. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 143 
 
 vested Lombard law with Eoman forms ; they interpreted 
 it by Roman analogies ; at times they threw it overboard 
 with every circumstance of disrespect. But the future 
 of Italian law lay rather in the application of Roman 
 principles to a society which, although in origin par- 
 tially Germanic, had become practically Latin, than 
 in any adaptation of early Germanic custom. The 
 process was accelerated by the fact that a large part 
 of Italy was actually in the tenth century dominated 
 by Roman law. In Venice, in Istria, in the Exarchate, 
 there are only a few isolated traces of persons pro- 
 fessing to live Lombard law. In Rome, Roman law 
 was practically triumphant, though Lombardists still 
 made their protest. And it should be remembered 
 also that all the forces which made for the territoriali- 
 zation of law, the introduction of the Scabinate, the 
 growth of city life, the multiplication of human 
 relations by comraerce, the spread of education, the 
 intermarriage of Lombard and Latin families, made 
 also for Romanism. In Bergamo, where there was a 
 strong Germanic colony, in the south of Italy, where 
 the mixture of races was great, where life was wilder 
 and more primitive, the territoriality of law came late. 
 In the south it had not been accomplished even at 
 the opening of the fifteenth century.^ But by the 
 end of the twelfth century the personality of law had 
 practically, in Northern Italy at least, become a thing 
 of the past. Men lived according to "the right and 
 the good usage and the custom of their city." The 
 great noble families, who have special legal traditions, 
 possibly guaranteed by ancient Lombard or Prankish 
 privilege, and here and there a stray Lombard in a 
 
 1 There are people liviug Prank and Lombard law as late as 1418 
 (Fertile, Storia del diritto Italiano, i., p. 384). 
 
 A 
 
144 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 rural castle, make profession of Lombard law. Every- 
 where else the territorial principle has won the day.' 
 
 How far was this growth of territorial law the result 
 of imperial influence ? We have seen that the capitu- 
 laries were intended to apply to the whole of Italy, that 
 the Liber Papiensis of the eleventh century formed a 
 nucleus of Italian law, which was in theory applicable 
 alike to those who professed the Lombard and to those 
 who professed the Roman system. An ample stream of 
 imperial legislation in Italy during the tenth, eleventh, 
 twelfth and thirteenth centiiries might have created 
 something like a uniform body of Italian law. But 
 instead of a stream we have a rivulet both tiny and 
 intermittent. In the two centuries and a half which 
 elapsed from the first intervention of Otto the Great to 
 the accession of Frederick IL, there are only fifteen 
 general imperial pronouncements upon law made in the 
 country, one of which is made in a papal sjmod, and 
 two of which are doubtfu.Uy authentic. There are long 
 periods of absolute drought during the reign of Henry 
 IV. and his son, when the War of the Investitures was 
 ragino", and ao-ain durinsf the struo-gle between Frederick 
 I. and the Papacy. 
 
 Yet these imperial edicts have their importance. 
 Although some apply only to special towns or districts 
 or classes," others are either expressly or implicitly valid 
 for all Italy. "By whatever law," says Otto I. in 967, 
 introducing the procedure of trial by battle into the 
 determination of certain cases, " a man shall live in the 
 whole kingdom of Italy, even if it be the Roman law, 
 
 ^ In penal matters, in the capacity of individuals for civil acts, in 
 matters relating to religious belief, matrimony and oaths, the personal 
 principle is preserved (Fertile, i. 386). 
 
 2 Thus Henry III. issues a decree for Lombardy, 1052. Weiland, i., 
 No. 52. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 145 
 
 we order him to observe all these decrees, as we have 
 decreed them in these chapters concerning battle."^ The 
 archbishops, bishops, abbots, marquises, counts and all 
 judges in Italy, these are the recipients of Otto III.'s 
 decree against the alienation of Church lands. The feudal 
 constitutions of Conrad II., of Lothair, of Frederick I., 
 are clearly vahd for all Italy. Many edicts too of 
 Frederick II. are imperial, though there are many 
 which have sole reference to the kingdom of Sicily, 
 and thus a small but not unimportant corpus of edicts 
 was formed, which was valid for the whole of Italy, 
 and which served to maintain the conception of a 
 law common to all parts of the peninsular. As under 
 Frederick I., Henry VI. and Frederick II. the 
 residence of the emperor in the country became 
 more and more continuous, and the imperial control 
 over the administrative and judicial machinery more 
 and more complete, an increasing degree of unity 
 must have been introduced into judicial method. We 
 must remember too that the emperors were Roman 
 emperors, and that in Roman law they found a welcome 
 justification for absolutism. Conrad II., in 1038, had 
 decided that Roman law was to rule the Roman territory. 
 Frederick I. appealed to Bologna, the home of Roman 
 legal studies, when he wished for a careful statement of 
 his regal claims in Italy. And Frederick II. in one 
 place appears to legislate against personal law in the 
 kingdom of Sicily. "We do not wish," he says "to 
 have any distinction of persons before the law, but 
 whether a man be Frank or Roman or Lombard, 
 
 ' Weiland, i., No. 13, sect. 9; i6.. No. 23; i6., Nos. 45, 120, 148, 149, 177. 
 Of. also M.O. Dipl, vol. i., ed. Sickel, p. 509, where on April 18th, 969, 
 Otto gives " laws and precepts " to the Calabrians, Itahans, Franks and 
 Germans. 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
 / 
 
146 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 plaintiff or defendant^ we wish to administer equal justice 
 to him." ^ Thus by issuing edicts valid for all Italy, by 
 encouraging the study and practice of the Eoman law, 
 which was the law of the predominant portion of the popu- 
 lation of Italy, by constructing something like a common 
 administrative system, by unifying the law of procedure 
 in the Sicilian kingdom, where the territorial principle 
 was weakest, these later Hohenstauffen emperors aid the 
 formation of a common Italian law, part written, part 
 unwritten, a Consuetudo Regni. Behind all the varieties 
 of local customs was the " common law of all the 
 emperors." ^ 
 
 If the emperor contributed little or nothing by 
 express edict to mould the German feudal law, leaving 
 it rather to form itself out of the decisions given from 
 time to time upon feudal questions by his court, his 
 interference in the feudal law in Italy is more easily 
 marked and more decisive. Italy expected legislation 
 of the emperor. It was a land of written law, of juristic 
 studies, of legal curiosity, whetted by the antagonism 
 of rival codes. The appearance of the emperor upon 
 the field of Eoncaglia was the signal, not only for 
 an extended series of legal decisions, but also for the 
 publication of edicts.^ He was called upon not only 
 to mitigate long-standing rancours and to decide aU 
 kinds of disputes, but to give general decisions upon 
 unsettled points of law, to improve procedure, to modify 
 the existing law itself. And there was a sufficient 
 
 1 Coast. Regn. Sic, 2. 17. ^ Ariprand, tit. Ivi. 
 
 ^ Gesta de Federigo I., ed. Monaci. Wherever the emperor ■n'as present 
 in person lie had concurrent jurisdiction with the ordinary local judges. 
 Otto Fris., Oesta Frid., i. 2, e. 13, "Alia itidem ex antiqua consuetudine 
 manasse traditur justitia, ut principe Italian! intrante cunctae vacare 
 debeant dignitates et magistratus ao ad ipsius nutum secundum scita 
 legum jurisque peritorum judicium universa tractari." Cf. Fioker, 
 Forsch., vol. i., pp. 275-6. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 147 
 
 divergence between the social and legal condition of 
 Germany and Italy to stimulate legislation, for it 
 always seems easier to legislate for foreigners than 
 for ourselves. Thus Otto I. re-introduces the Germanic 
 procedure of trial by battle, although it had been 
 carefully limited by the enlightened ejfforts of the 
 earlier Lombard kings, and Otto III. extends the 
 application of this barbaric remedy.^ But procedure 
 was not the most suggestive theme for the German 
 legislator upon one of his ilying visits over the Brenner. 
 When he had pronounced the magic word "duellum," 
 he had practically said his say.^ Roman law again 
 stood in no need of his assistance, and the development 
 of municipal life had created conditions which made 
 most of the Germanic legal ideas inapplicable to by 
 fiir the largest portion of the Lombard population. 
 But the law relating to fiefs stood on a different plat- 
 form. Here there was every reason why the emperor 
 should wish to have his " say," there was every reason 
 why his " say " should be anxiously elicited. Fiefs 
 were a Germanic institution, and the German emperors 
 appear largely to have depended for their influence 
 south of the Alps upon certain great feudatories of 
 Germanic origin. When the time came for the Roman 
 march, a certain quantum of militarj^ service was 
 demanded by the Lombard king, and this, so it would 
 seem, had been originally fixed by contracts made 
 between the emperor and the tenants-in-chief The 
 
 iGrimoald, c. 4; Luitprand, c. 71, 118. Luitprand's remarks [a.d. 
 731] are significant : " Quia incerti sumus de judicio Dei et multos 
 audivimus per pugnam sine justitia causam suam perdere, sed propter 
 consuitutinem gentis nostras Langobardorum legem ipsam vetare non 
 possiimus" (£.i., iv., p. 156). 
 
 2 The emperor, however, was occasionally asked to lay down a rule of 
 procedure. Of. the Cmistitutio Auximana of 1177 ; Weiland, i.. No. 273. 
 
148 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 maintenance of these feudal obligations was thus a vital 
 matter to the German ruler. It was one of the main 
 pillars of his trans-Alpine rule. 
 
 Again, there were two special points of contrast 
 between the condition of the fief-holding nobility in 
 Germany and the condition of the fief-holding nobility 
 in Italy. In Germany there was little town life ; 
 there was a large rural nobility holding fiefs directly 
 or indirectly of the crown. In Italy the towns were 
 everything, the rural nobility comparatively insignifi- 
 cant in numbers and importance.^ We know the 
 names of the great North Italian nobles who attend 
 the courts of Frederick Barbarossa, whose signatures 
 are upon his charters. They are most of them from 
 the north-west, and they can be numbered upon the 
 fingers of both hands. It is doubtful whether any 
 of them were very wealthy, or from a military point 
 of view very important. There was in fact a constant 
 drift of the nobility, even of the higher nobility, 
 into the towns, and many who possessed estates in 
 the country also had their town houses. The paucity 
 of great feudatories, the absence of a continuous royal 
 court attended by the greater nobles, and deciding 
 points of feudal law in the interests of the higher rank 
 of the aristocracy, the continuous and abundant drift 
 into the towns, where feudal considerations were at a 
 discount, the influence of Eoman law, the precocious de- 
 velopment of Italian commerce — these forces tend to 
 relax the strictness of feudal law in Italy, to favour the 
 vassal at the expense of the lord, to promote the free 
 treatment of the vassal's fief. Whereas in Germany the 
 vassal can only dispose of the fruits of his benefice 
 
 ' For the absorptioD of Italian feudatories in the towns, cf . Fertile, 
 Storia del diritto Italiano, pp. 277, 313, n. 47. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 149 
 
 without the consent of the lord, in Italy he can alienate 
 half, and in many districts, for instance in Milan, the 
 whole of his fief without the lord's consent. The 
 German rule, giving to the lord the right of transferring 
 the lordship of his vassal's fief to another without the 
 vassal's consent, holds good only among the Milanese 
 and Cremonese, and then with the qualification that 
 the vassal must, during his lifetime, receive no damage 
 from the change. In all other parts of Italy the man's 
 consent is required. Again, whereas in Germany the 
 fief descends only to the actual descendants of the last 
 possessor, in Italy ascendants and collaterals are in- 
 cluded under the category of potential heirs. ^ While 
 in Germany the lord enters on the fief during a 
 minority, in Italy the fruits of the fief and the repre- 
 sentation of a fief during a minority belong to the 
 guardian of the minor's allodial property. The German 
 law is more favourable to the lord, the Lombard law 
 more favourable to the vassal.^ 
 
 The prevailing disposition of the German emperors 
 was to favour the bishops and the higher Italian 
 nobihty, and to apply to Italy those strict feudal 
 principles which were popular north of the Alps. The 
 bishops and the higher nobility — these were in truth 
 the German garrison. We may trace in the marriages 
 contracted from time to time between the Italian and 
 the German noble houses the constant preoccupation of 
 
 1 The right of succession, which was probably originally restricted to 
 brothers, was extended first to the third, then to the fourth, then as far 
 as the seventh degree, and then even that limit disappeared. But the 
 fief could only go to the descendants of the first feoflfee {Lihri Feudorum, 
 i. 5 ; viii. 1 ; ii. 50). In the south of Italy Frederick II. admitted the 
 succession of collaterals only up to the third degree. 
 
 - This was especially the case according to the custom of Milan. Cf 
 Libri Feudorum, ii. 28. 1, 37. 1, 24 n., 40. 2, 34. 3 ; Pertile, Storia del 
 diritto lialiano, vol. iv., sect. 131. 
 
I50 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 the emperors to maintain the Germanic character of this 
 small but invaluable force. The marriage of the Mar- 
 grave Azzo II. with the Welf heiress Cuniza ; the 
 marriage of Hermann of Swabia with Adelheid, eldest 
 daughter of the Margrave Olderich — Manfred II. of 
 Turin ; the marriage of Otto of Schweinfurt with his 
 second daughter Immula; the marriage of Boniface 
 of Tuscany with the daughter of Duke Frederick of 
 Upper Lorraine — all these alliances belong to the reign 
 of Conrad II., and may be taken as samples of a con- 
 tinuous principle of imperial policy. The natural 
 tendency of every German emperor would be to 
 favour the great man against the small man, the lord 
 against the vassal, the bishop nominated by himself, 
 holding his office for life, bound to receive him and to 
 entertain him and to furnish him with troops, against 
 the bishop's man. 
 
 But there was a distinction to be drawn between 
 the lay and the clerical portion of the German garrison 
 in Italy. The German bishops held their office for 
 life, the German nobility became rooted in the soil, 
 and with every generation became less Germanic and 
 more Italian. In the reign of Henry II. all the more 
 prominent noble families in North Italy had thrown 
 themselves on the side opposed to the empire. They 
 had supported Arduin of RTea as a candidate for 
 the Lombard throne, they had been vanquished by 
 the force of German arms, and many of them were 
 despatched north of the Alps to languish in German 
 prisons.^ Nor was the resistance of the Anti-German 
 
 ' Pabst, Heinrich II., ii., p. 354 ff. The five great North Italian famihes 
 in Conrad's reign were : (1) the Margraves of Turin ; (2) the Aledra- 
 mides of Acqui and Savona ; (.3) the Otbertiner with county rights in 
 Genoa, Luni, Tortona, Milan ; (4) the house of Este with their five 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 151 
 
 party entirely vanquished by the vigour of Henry II. 
 On the death of that monarch the envoys of the Italian 
 princes offer the Lombard crown to King Eobert of 
 France for himself and for his son, and, rejected at 
 Paris, they proceed to Poitou to sound William V., the 
 learned, orthodox and powerful Duke of Aquitaine. 
 The story of these negotiations need not be told in 
 all its fulness. The facts, however, are clear. William 
 was ready to accejDt the Lombard crown, not indeed 
 for himself, but for his son, provided that he could 
 be secure of adequate support in Italy. But the 
 North Itahan prelates remained true to the German 
 connection, and William was too pious a prince 
 to accept the suggestion of his more unscrupulous 
 adherents, that he should depose all the bishops in 
 Italy and appoint his own personal adherents in their 
 place.^ Other circumstances — troubles in Aquitaine, the 
 lukewarmness of the Margrave of Turin, the failure of 
 diplomatic combinations in France — may have con- 
 tributed to bring about William's "great refusal." 
 But the central fact in the situation was that the 
 bishops of North Italy could not be seduced from 
 their German allegiance. Conrad drew the appropriate 
 moral. He saw the value of the episcopate ; he deter- 
 mined to maintain, to increase, its German character. 
 He saw the danger of the Italian nobility ; he deter- 
 mined to marry them into German houses. He would 
 have a German aristocracy, lay and clerical, ruling 
 both north and south of the Alps. And opportunity 
 favoured him. Two cyphers and a dissolute boy suc- 
 
 couuties of Modena, Eeggio, Mantua, Brescia, and Ferrara ; (5) the Mar- 
 graves of Tuscany, who have also the Duchy of Spoleto and the Mar- 
 graviate of Camerino in their family. Bresslau, i., pp. 69-71, pp. 365-443. 
 1 Cf. the remarkable letter of William to Leo of Vercelli [Bouquet, x., 
 p. 484]. 
 
152 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 ceeded one another in the papal chair. There would 
 be no pontifical expostulation against simony or alien 
 influence or secularism. He packed the Italian sees 
 systematically with Germans and personal adherents.^ 
 He forwarded intermarriages between the Italian and 
 German nobility so successfully that by 1036 three out 
 of the five great North Italian families had married 
 into German houses.^ To bind the great feudatories 
 to the German interest was the first object of Conrad's 
 policy. 
 
 It happened, however, that the first pronouncement 
 of a German emperor upon feudal law in Italy was made, 
 not in favour of the tenant-in-chief, but in favour of the 
 vassal.^ The circumstances which led to Conrad II. 's 
 famous edict of 1037 cannot be very perfectly dis- 
 entangled, but certain facts are clear, and they are 
 sufficient to explain the emperor's action. Aribert, the 
 Archbishop of jMilan, had become practical ruler of North 
 Italy. " He disposed of the whole kingdom of Italy at 
 his pleasure."* It is possible that, encouraged by the 
 independent traditions of the Milanese Church, he may 
 have aimed at constructing an ecclesiastical state for 
 Milan in the north, as the Popes aimed at building up 
 an ecclesiastical state for Rome in the centre of Italy. 
 It seems certain that he was opposed to the spread of 
 German influence in his own province,^ and that his 
 tyranny and oppression roused an insurrection of the 
 
 1 Bresslau, Konrad II., ii., pp. 175-87. ^ 77,^ y^ pp_ 188-191. 
 
 ^ Sigonius, De Regno Italico, t. iv., attributes feudal legislation to 
 Lothair in 825, "Proditum etiam est memoriae Lotharium pro foribus 
 Basilicae Vaticauae de feodis statuisse consilio sapientum Mediolani 
 Papiae, Cremonae, etc." 
 
 ^ Giesebreobt, ii. 5, 314. 
 
 '" Bresslau, vol. ii., p. 187, points out only two cases— Henry of Ivrea 
 and Richer, Abbot of Leno — of imperial adherents of Germany appointed 
 duriug this reign to ecclesiastical office in the province of Milan. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 153 
 
 valvassores of Milan, which then widened out into a 
 general rising of all the valvassores and lower knights of 
 Italy against their lords. The defeat of the archi- 
 episcopal and aristocratic party at Campo Malo in 1035 
 determined Aribert to invoke the emperor. The im- 
 perial influence would surely, he reflected, be thrown 
 into its wonted scale. But, whatever may have been 
 Conrad's original intentions when he entered Italy, 
 circumstances rapidly threw him into the arms of the 
 valvassores. On the second day of his visit to Milan, 
 the emperor was disturbed by a serious tumult of the 
 Milanese, which he attributed to Aribert. Dissembling 
 his indignation he left the city and summoned a parlia- 
 ment at Pavia. Here the general indignation caused by 
 Aribert's misrule flamed out clearly. The emperor 
 accused the archbishop of disloyalty (he may have been 
 referring to the Milanese riot or to earlier deeds, the 
 particulars of which have been lost), and the Count of 
 Milan and several other Italians brought up manifold 
 charges of oppression, and specially it would seem of 
 property wrongfully seized. Conrad, who does not seem 
 to have desired to push the case too hardly against the 
 archbishop, merely admonished him to restore the 
 property which he had embezzled. But the archbishop, 
 after consultation with his friends, boldly denied the 
 jurisdiction of the imperial court, and was handed over 
 to the custody of the Patriarch of Aquileia as guilty of 
 treason. One night at Piacenza the archbishop fled 
 from his prison, rode to Milan and raised the city against 
 the emperor. The citizens who hated their count, now 
 connected by marriage with the German nobility, rallied 
 round the archbishop. The emperor summoned reinforce- 
 ments from Germany, and caUed upon the Italian princes 
 to join him before the walls of Milan. It was during the 
 
154 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 siege of Milan, on May 28tli, 1037, that the edict 
 concerning the benefices of the kingdom of Italy was 
 issued. 
 
 We would fain know more of this revolution in 
 Italy. That the main discontent came from the third 
 order of feudatories, the milites secundi or valvassores 
 minores ; that their chief grievance was insecurity of 
 tenure, and the liability to be deprived of their fiefs at 
 the arbitrary discretion of their overlords ; that Conrad's 
 edict pacified the country and satisfied the claims of a 
 large and important military class — these things seem 
 established. But we cannot tell whether Aribert and 
 his fellows were revolutionaries, attempting to enforce 
 upon their vassals the doctrine of the revocability of the 
 fief, which may have been held in theory by some 
 feudists north of the Alps, though it had certainly been 
 abandoned in practice. We do not even know whether 
 they pretended to justify their violence by legal tech- 
 nicalities. We can only tentatively reconstruct the 
 ad^'ice which a subservient Lombard lawyer would 
 have given on the one side, or an independent Lombard 
 lawyer on the other. That the princes had secured the 
 heredity of their fiefs is certain ; that the captains had 
 also secured the same privilege is highly probable. As 
 early as 883 the annals of Fulda relate that Charles the 
 Fat caused a revolution among the great Italians, by 
 depriving them of benefices which had remained for 
 three generations in their families.-' But it is conceiv- 
 able that the heritability of the fief, though long 
 recognized among the two superior orders of the 
 
 ^ Ann. Fuld., SS. i., p. 398, "Imperator ... ammos op timatum ... contra 
 se conoitavit. Namqne Witonem. aliosque nonnullos exauctoravit, et 
 beneficia quae illi et patrea et avi et atavi illorum tenuerant vilioribus 
 dedit persoiiis." 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 155 
 
 nobility, had not been so completely guaranteed in 
 respect of the benefices of the valvassores.^ We must 
 remember too that the original revocability of the fief 
 had never been lost sight of, and that it is solemnly 
 stated in the opening chapter of the first book of the 
 Libri Feudorum. Still we cannot help thinking that 
 the valvassores were defending and their superiors 
 attacking the established custom of North Italy. Not 
 only does one of the chroniclers expressly say that 
 Conrad merely confirmed the law of earlier days,^ but in 
 the commentary of Ariprand, a judge of the Marquis of 
 Este's, who certainly wrote before these events, it is 
 assumed that fiefs are hereditary.' They may be for- 
 feited indeed for certain special causes, but only after 
 a judgment of a vassal's peers, and from this sentence 
 there is an appeal to the overlord. If the lord alienate 
 or lease or exchange a fief without just cause, he is to 
 pay a hundred pounds of gold, half to the king, half to 
 the damaged person. Neither here nor in the Libri 
 Feudorum, nor in the Milanese custom, is there any 
 exception made to the general rule of heritability, to the 
 detriment of the valvassores. The law of Conrad appears 
 to be very little more than an amplification of the views 
 which appear to have prevailed in the court of the 
 Margrave of Este.* 
 
 If Conrad was forced to conciliate the vassals, he was 
 not debarred at the same time from pro^ading a gateway 
 through which imperial influence might flow into Italy. 
 He decrees that no knight of bishop, abbot, abbess, 
 marquis or count, who holds an imperial or ecclesiastical 
 
 ^ Bresslau, ii., p. 201. 2 fferim Auff. Chron., 1037, SS. v., p. 122. 
 
 ^Ansoh-utz, Lombarda-Ccnnmentaire .des Ari-prand und Alhertiis, lib. iii., 
 tit. 8, " Sed si deoesserit qui feodum quaesivit, filii ejus succedunt et 
 per filium descendentes mares." 
 
 ■• Anschiitz, Die Lombarda-Commentare des Ariprand und Alhertus. 
 
156 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ll 
 
 fief, shall lose it except for some certain and proved 
 fault, " according to the constitution of our ancestors 
 and by the judgment of his peers." Again, upon the 
 death of any knight, be he greater or less, his son 
 succeeds to the benefice ; and if he have no son living, 
 Ijut onl}^ grandsons by a son, then the grandsons are to 
 succeed, after paying the usual heriots to their seniors. 
 And if he have no grandsons, but have a brother law- 
 fully begotten by his father, then, if that brother wish 
 to become the knight of the senior and to do satis- 
 faction to him, let him have his father's benefice. No 
 senior is to exchange, lease, or convey any benefice 
 belonging to his knights without their consent. And 
 no one is unjustly to divest them of their properties or 
 leases. The knight is thus secured both in that which 
 he holds by a beneficiary and that which he holds by 
 a non-beneficiary title.-' 
 
 The emperor has cast his protection over feudal 
 possessions. If a dispute arise concerning a benefice 
 between one of the greater valvassores and his senior, 
 then the question is decided by the peers of the sub- 
 tenant. But even if the peers have decided against him, 
 he may hold his benefice until plaintiff and defendant 
 and the defendant's peers come into the emperor's pres- 
 ence, that the case may be decided there. But if peers 
 be lacking to the defendant when judgment is given in 
 the first instance, then the defendant shall hold his 
 benefice until he and his seniors and his peers come into 
 
 ' In the Lihri Feudorum [Bk. i., sect. 2], the legislation of Conrad is thus 
 described : " Cum vero Conradus Eomam profiscisceretur petitum est a 
 fidelibus qui in ejus erant servitio, ut, lege ab eo promulgata, hoc etiani 
 ad nepotes ex filio producere dignaretur et ut gratis fratri sine legitimo 
 herede defuncto in beneficio, quod eorum fratris f uit, succedat. Cui aatem 
 unus ex fratribus a domino feodum acceperit, eo defuncto sine legitimo 
 herede, frater eius in feudum non succedit, nisi hoc nominatim dictum sit." 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 157 
 
 the presence of the emperor. A notice of such appeal 
 on the part either of senior or knight must be sent in to 
 the other litigant six weeks before the journey be begun. 
 But if the dispute concern not the greater but the lesser 
 valvassor, it shall be brought to a termination either 
 before the seniors or before an imperial missus. Conrad 
 here affirms a great principle, one which, had it been 
 worked out by an adequate and continuouslj^ active staff 
 of imperial judges, might have brought all the judicial 
 business of Northern Italy into the imperial court. He 
 affirms the principle that no one need be dispossessed of 
 his fee without a decision of the emperor or of his agent. 
 He affirms the principle that no one should be divested 
 of his property or of his leasehold unjustly, by which 
 we may perhaps understand, " without judgment of his 
 peers." He imposes a fine of a hundred pounds of gold 
 upon whomsoever shall infringe the edict. If he had 
 given the right of appeal in the second case as he had 
 given it in the first, his edict would have covered the 
 whole ground occupied by the proprietary and possessory 
 assizes of Henry II. of England. These assizes definitely 
 gave to the royal court of England its supremacy among 
 competing jurisdictions. They were not, as was the 
 edict of Conrad, issued en bloc as a public royal act of 
 legislation. They were, it would seem, informal in- 
 structions of a technical kind issued to the king's judges 
 when they went upon circuit. We do not even know 
 when they were first given.^ But they were infinitely 
 more effective than was Conrad's edict. They form in 
 fact a turning point in English legal history. They 
 were more effective because they did not merely apply to 
 military tenures ; because they did not merely concern 
 a given district or a given class of men ; because, above 
 1 H.E.L., vol. i., c. V. 
 
158 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 all, they were administered in the provinces by the 
 king's itinerant justices, who thus purveyed cheap 
 legal remedies to the litigant's own home. How many 
 a Lombard valvassor would have tramped over the 
 Alpine snows with his recalcitrant peers and his angry 
 senior to hunt the restless German court on its irregular 
 untimed rounds through that lawless, sparsely peopled, 
 inclement land? AVhat imperial agent could have wrung 
 that crushing fine from an Archbishop of Milan for in- 
 stance, who, despite six weeks' notice, should decline to 
 face the incommodities of S'^dtzerland, on the invita- 
 tion of a sub-tenant who had not been able to get his 
 peers to take the same ^'iew as himself? The right of 
 appeal must have been seldom exercised. It can have 
 little profited the emperor to cast his palladium over 
 beneficiary possession, in the absence of a permanent 
 imperial staff of judges in Italy. The opportunity which 
 Henry II. of England made, coming as the reintroducer 
 of law and order after a period of anarchic feuds, that 
 opportunity Conrad II. of Germany, descending into 
 Italy after a period of social strife, managed to miss. 
 The edict had the effect of making the fiefs of the val- 
 Aassores hereditary. But it did nothing permanently 
 to increase the imperial authority south of the ^\lps. 
 
 Xot a sing;le legislative act affecting; the tenure and 
 succession of fiefs has come down to us from the three 
 Henries. But the Saxon Lothair promulgated an edict, 
 which Ls in fact a reversal of Conrad's policy, and an 
 application of the stricter rules of German feudal law 
 to Italy. It was issued at the diet of Eoncaglia in 1136, 
 the traditional place at which the emperors took stock 
 of their rights and privileges, and issued ordinances for 
 the administration of justice and the preservation of 
 peace in Northern Italy. The great nobles of North 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 159 
 
 Italy had come to the diet with a very scanty following 
 of knights ; the Eoman expedition would be an un- 
 usually and scandalously thin one. The empire was in 
 danger of losing a large part of its Italian military 
 service, and the great nobles were called on to explain 
 the situation. They said that their knights had alien- 
 ated their benefices recklessly and piecemeal, and that 
 being now destitute of fiefs, refused to undertake the 
 military service, which was attached to the alienated 
 property. A somewhat similar situation in England 
 provoked Edward I.'s statute of Quia Emptores, which 
 on the one hand facilitated alienation, but on the other 
 hand forbade subinfeudation, thus conciliating royal and 
 feudal with economic necessity. The assembly of 
 Eoncaglia devised another . remedy. No one could 
 alienate a benefice which he had received from his 
 seniors without the senior's consent ; or enter into any 
 contract which should be prejudicial to the interests of 
 the empire or of his superior lords. Au}' person violating 
 this law shall lose both the price he is paid upon the 
 contract and the benefice as well, and any notary com- 
 posing such an instrument shall lose his ofiice and sustain 
 the danger of infamia. This constitution was received 
 into the Lombard law and into the Libri Feudorum} 
 It was a law issued in Lombardy, and issued for Lom- 
 bardy. It was by no means so clever a solution as 
 Edward's statute ; it put a considerable impediment in 
 the way of the free economic treatment of the knightly 
 fee. But it was undoubtedly popular with the great 
 lords, and it can scarcely have ever been allowed to 
 become a dead letter. 
 
 iWeiland's edition is partially based upon an edition of a twelfth 
 century MS. belonging to the Register of the Archiepiscopal Court of 
 Genoa. Boretius, LL. iv., p. 639 ; Stumpf, 3339. 
 
i6o THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 It was the fate of the medieval empire that it could 
 only advance by antiquarianism, by the resurrection of 
 ancient rights and privileges and memories. This is 
 the destiny of all institutions whose glory lives in 
 the past, and the glory of the medieval empire had 
 expired with Charles the Great. After centuries of 
 foiled and broken effort to recover the vanished power 
 of Constantine or of Charles, a man comes to take up 
 the imperial task with more passionate insight, more 
 resolute will, and with, above all, a larger oppor- 
 tunity than had been accorded to his predecessors. 
 Frederick I. felt and understood the peculiar nature 
 of his inheritance. We find him everywhere insisting 
 on traditional rights, stereotyping privilege, reviving 
 and consecrating afresh the past. He declares that' the 
 princes of the kingdom of Aries are imperial vassals ; 
 he invests and receives the oath of homage from the 
 archbishops of Lyons, Vienna, Aries, Tarantaise and Aix, 
 or their suffragans; in 1162 invests Count Eaimund 
 Berengar II. with Provence ; in 1178 he gets himself, 
 his TNife and son crowned in the cathedral of the 
 Burgundian capital.^ The canonization of Charles the 
 Great is typical of his aims. As he says in his en- 
 cyclical to the Teutons and Latins, issued in 1162, 
 after the destruction of Milan, " We will turn our 
 army and our victorious eagles to effect the complete 
 restoration of the empire — ad 'plencmam imperii re- 
 formationem." He feels that the service of the empire 
 cannot be properly performed if fiefs are alienated in- 
 definitely, if the strict rules of feudal law as understood 
 in Germany are not observed, if great ecclesiastical prin- 
 cipalities are impoverished by the profligate expenditure 
 of ecclesiastical princes. He is aware that in Italy 
 
 1 Ficker, ReichfiirsteTistand, pp. 296-308. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY i6i 
 
 there is much obscurity as to the extent of the imperial 
 rights, for the visits of his predecessors had been brief 
 and intermittent.-' Accordingly, no sooner does he 
 cross the Brenner than he begins to scrutinize, to revise, 
 to restate the regalia, speaking at his first diet of Eon- 
 caglia in the following fashion : " The vassal who does 
 not go the Eome-journey with the king pays his lord 
 host-money ; the Lombard twelve pence a bushel ; the 
 German a third part of the fruits of the year." And 
 in 1158 he sets the four famous doctors of Bologna 
 to inquire into the regalia of the Lombard kings. It 
 is in accordance with this spirit that he approaches 
 the feudal law, again and again affirming the 
 principle which is the essential condition of effective 
 medieval rule, "No imperial fief can be alienated 
 without the emperor's consent." In all his dealings with 
 cities he respects the rights of feudal overlords. All 
 persons who happen to have been in Crema during 
 the siege are to lose their fiefs and allods, but the fiefs 
 are to return to the lords, who are to have full power 
 to deal with them subject to the imperial authority.^ 
 As in Germany, so in Italy, he brings his bishops 
 into the feudal pen. " I do not want their homage," 
 he says, " if they do not want their regalia," and he 
 finds Italian friends to refer him now to a passage of 
 St. Augustine condemning ecclesiastical opulence, and 
 now to a passage in Eoman law supporting the thesis 
 that a bishop's palace is one of the royal rights.^ 
 
 Frederick then comes to Italy, determined to enforce 
 feudal obligations. At his first diet of Eoncaglia, he not 
 
 ' Weiland, i., No. 440. 
 
 2 Scripta de expiignatione Cremae, 1159-60 ; Weiland, i., Nos. 191-3. 
 
 3 Toeche, Eeinrich VI., pp. 14, 15, remarks, "The idea which lay at the 
 bottom of the feudal system is first developed in his [Frederick I 'si reiau " 
 
 VOL. II. L JO- 
 
i62 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 only confirms Lotliair's edict, "Fiefs may not be alienated 
 without the lord's leave," but he adds, " All alienations 
 hitherto so made, however ancient, are null and void." 
 He applies too to Italy a doctrine which had long been 
 recognized in Germany, " Whoever does not help his 
 king or lord, either in person or in purse, paying accord- 
 ing to the quantity of his fief, when a public expedition 
 has been announced to take up the imperial crown, if 
 such an one can be convicted by his lord, let him lose 
 his fief" And four years later, at a still more famous 
 diet of Eoncaglia, Frederick recurs to the same theme, 
 issuing the Constitutio de Jure Feudorum. 
 
 This famous document is a summary of Frederick's 
 feudal policy, and is one of the many engines which 
 were forged in the year 1158 to further the great pro- 
 ject of recovering the imperial rights. The first four 
 clauses are in the main repetitions of the constitution 
 of 1154, but there are some technical improvements, 
 some further definitions. An action is given to a 
 hona-fide buyer against the vendor of a fief; the 
 neglect to seek investiture for a }'ear and a day is 
 only to involve forfeiture in the case of those who 
 are more than fourteen years of age ; service on the 
 Roman journey may be done either by sending another 
 who shall be acceptable to the lord, or by paying one 
 year's revenue. The other clauses are more impor- 
 tant. (1) No duchy, marquisate or county is in future 
 to be divided.^ Any other fief — if those who have a 
 share in it should wish — may be divided, l)ut all those 
 who take a share in such a fief must do fealty to the 
 
 ' The' charters of Bergamo show how in the eleventh century the office 
 and title of count was divided among several members of the same 
 family. In 1082 three counts of Bergamo appear before Henry IV. 
 {SulV antichissima origine dei govemi munieipii Italiard, Antonio Pag- 
 noncelli, Bergamo, 1823, t. i., c. 8). 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 163 
 
 lord either before or after the partition. But the vassal 
 cannot be bound to more than one lord for one fief ; and 
 the lord cannot transfer the fief to another without the 
 consent of his vassals. (2) If the son of a vassal offend 
 the lord, the father must, upon the request of the lord, 
 either bring the son to give satisfaction to the lord or 
 else he must separate the son from himself Otherwise 
 he must lose his fief If the son refuse to obey his 
 father or to do satisfaction to the lord, then on the 
 father's death he is not to succeed to the fief unless 
 he first do satisfaction. And the vassal is similarly 
 responsible for all in his family. (3) If B, a vassal 
 holding of A, have a sub-tenant C, and C off'end A, then 
 unless C did it in service of B, let him (C) lose his fief, 
 and let the fief revert to B unless, on the requisition of 
 B, C is prepared to satisfy A. And if B refuse to make 
 this requisition, then let B lose his fief. (4) If a contro- 
 versy about a fief arise between two vassals, let the lord 
 terminate the controversy. If between lord and vassal, 
 let the quarrel be settled by the peers of the court. (5) 
 To every oath of fealty the emperor is to be excepted by 
 name. 
 
 It was a gallant but a forlorn attempt to revive the 
 oflicial idea which once actually underlay the system of 
 fiefs, and which was destined to persist, in a state of 
 reverent interment in the historical introduction to the 
 Lihri Feudorum. To declare the indivisibility of the 
 great ofiicial fiefs was easy, to secure it impossible,^ and 
 this clause in Frederick's ordinance, like so many other 
 
 ' Also in 1255 the partition of Peter of Savoy was resisted on the 
 ground "quod comitatus non debet dividi neo ducatus juxta legem 
 Frederici quondam imperatoris." It appears, however, to have been 
 easy to get a dispensation from Frederick's rule [Ficker, Forsch., i. 246]. 
 Frederick restores to the Counts of Prato the alienated parts of the 
 county [Ficker, i., pp. 245-6]. 
 
i64 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 imperial edicts, survived rather as an aspiration than as 
 a rule, sharing the fate of that clause in the JMirror of 
 Swabia, which, while permitting the partition of princi- 
 palities, marquisates and counties, declares that none of 
 the co-partners shall style themselves prince, marquis or 
 count/ In 1192 we hear of a sixteenth part of a county. 
 The clause in the Constitutio FetiAomm, " Qui allodium 
 suum vendiderit, districtum et jurisdictionem imperatoris 
 vendere non praesumat," was a dead letter from the first. 
 It was impossible that property and jurisdiction should 
 so be severed. So the county went the way of all private 
 property.^ The law of Frederick could be evaded by 
 express dispensation, or by legal fictions, by joint and 
 several partnerships.^ Custom decided that jurisdictions 
 and castles could be bought and sold, and though the 
 law was on the other side, custom won the day. The 
 Italian lawyers confessed to its victory.* 
 
 Tliere is a collection of the feudal laws and customs of 
 Northern Italy which goes under the name of the Lihri 
 Feudorum.^ It is a miscellaneous mass of decisions in 
 doubtful cases, casual commentaries on or statements of 
 municipal custom, of imperial rescripts either in full or 
 in excerpts. Critics are divided as to the exact date and 
 origin of the different component parts of this collection. 
 
 ' Fertile, Storia del diritto Italiano, i. 270, n. 60. 
 
 ' In 1215 the Lords of Eobbio sell to the Commune of Vercelli 11/32 of 
 the castle, 13/32 of the villa of Eobbio, 17/32 of Eivoltella, 1/3 of the 
 castle tower, villa and court of Palestro, and 1/37 of the court of Meleto 
 with all public authority and jurisdiction [Fertile, i. 270, n. 59]. 
 
 ^ Gregori, Stat, di Corsica, Introd., 123. 
 
 ^ Fabianus de Monte, De Empt. et Vendit, Tract, vi., i. 45, n. 11, " Sed 
 de consuetudine contrarium usurpatum est : nam toto die videmus vendi 
 castra cum jurisdictione et mero et mixto imperio, quae consuetude vincit 
 legem " [Fertile, i., p. 268, n. 49]. 
 
 ^ Laspeyres, Ueher die Entstehung und aelterste Bearbeitung der Lihri 
 Fevdorwrn ; Dieck, Litterargeschichte des Langohardischen Lehnrechts ; 
 VioUet, Precis de I'histoire dii droit Frangais, pp. 140-142. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 165 
 
 But on all hands it is agreed that it was complete before 
 the death of Frederick Barbarossa. A new recension 
 was made of it by Jacobus de Ardizone, a Veronese 
 lawyer, who studied at Bologna under Azo, and whose 
 /S'umma i'eiwiortfm was written between 1234 and 1250, 
 and this recension became the corpVjS vile of a long row 
 of commentators from Joannes Blancus of Marseilles, 
 the contemporary of Joinville, to Petrus Eavennas, the 
 contemporary of Shakespeare, who taught in the Protes- 
 tant University of Wittenberg. The skeleton of this 
 body of feudal law is formed by the edicts of the three 
 emperors, Conrad, Lothair, Frederick, but the skeleton 
 is clothed with a mass of custom and gloss and judge- 
 made law.-' Nothing indeed can more clearly illustrate 
 the difference between German and Italian civilization 
 than the transmutation undergone by German feudalism 
 in the legal climate of Jlilan. The corner-stone of 
 Frederick's feudal system was the obligation on the part 
 of the vassal to seek investiture. The Milanese custom 
 declares that the vassal does not lose his fief, though a 
 year and a day have passed without his seeking in- 
 vestiture, unless he has been specially required to receive 
 investiture or to do fealty by his lord, or has been 
 summoned three times by the peers of the court. ^ It is 
 a general rule of feudal law, that if a man desert 
 his lord in the field he loses his benefice. But the 
 Milanese lawyers, whose rules are adapted to the exi- 
 gencies of inter-municipal warfare, rank civil before 
 
 ^ Lehmann, Das Langohardische Lehnrecht, p. 80, " So sind es die drei 
 Kaiser, Konrad II., Lothair III. und Friedrioh Barbarossa zu denen die 
 Feudisten auf blicken. . . . Aus den gesetzen dieser drei Kaiser, und aus 
 der praxis der Mailander Kurie hat die Jurisprudenz von Pavia \ind 
 Mailand die Consuetudines Feudorum geschaffeu." 
 
 ^Cf. a decision given at Trent in 1220, "Si quis vassallus per annum et 
 diem non solverit hostaticum ... dominus se in feodum intromittat" 
 (Fertile, i. 270, n. 57). 
 
1 66 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 feudal ties. "Not if his lord has war with our city 
 and he does not aid him, but stands by the city 
 against him, and this because he is not compelled in 
 respect of any fief to serve against his country [pairm], 
 for which he is bound to fight by the law of nations."^ 
 According to the conceptions of Frederick the essence 
 of a benefice was feudal service. The municipal law of 
 Milan says that a vassal does not lose his fief however 
 long a time may have elapsed since he has exhibited 
 service to his master. The German emperor attempts 
 to prevent free commercial dealings with a fief. The 
 Milanese custom encourages the transfer of part of 
 the fief without the consent of the lord. 
 
 One law is suited for a rural aristocracy, another for a 
 community of merchants.^ The emperor saw in the 
 feudal service the means of securing an army and a 
 revenue, and he attempted to define and strengthen 
 feudal obligations. The town saw in the feudal tie 
 between the burgher and the castle outside the walls a 
 danger to municipal independence, and it attempted to 
 whittle the tie away. For the Milanese and the Floren- 
 tine the true " patria " was his city ; for him the political 
 essence of feudalism rapidly evaporated, leaving a body 
 of rules concerning a form of real property, many of 
 which were interpreted and transformed by alien prin- 
 ciples drawn from the alien jurisprudence of Eome.^ 
 
 1 It is curious to compare the thirteenth century Italian collection of 
 Cato's distiches, which give the whole duty of man, "Adora a Domenideu, 
 ama to pare, e tea mare ... ohedis a lo Tnercato ... tempra a dal vino, conbate 
 per lo to paese." Cf. Monaci, Crestomazia, vol. i., No. 51. 
 
 ^ Fertile observes that most of the imperial fiefs given to Italian lords, 
 the diploinata of which are preserved in Laing's God. Dip. Ital., are made 
 descendable to females (Storia del diritto Italiano, vol. iv., p. 142). 
 
 ' Cf. Obertus de Orto on the causes of losing a fief, Lih'i Feudonim, ii., 
 X. 8 : "Natural and civil reason shows that a benefice may be lost in the 
 aforesaid ways. This can be collected by any one who reads Novell, 115, 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 167 
 
 But if the attempt to revive the strict official 
 feudalism was forlorn, it was not one of those failures 
 which mean disaster. The feudal class in Italy was 
 now a small class, for most of the nobles had allowed 
 their rights to be bought up by the cities, and it was 
 therefore with the cities rather than with the nobles that 
 a monarch desiring to rule Italy must deal. By a series 
 of contracts with the great cities of the north, results 
 could be achieved of a far more brilliant and permanent 
 character than could possibly be derived by the appli- 
 cation of strict feudal theory to a society which had 
 abandoned the rural castle for the town. In dealing 
 with a Communitas the emperor was dealing with an 
 overlord more powerful, more wealthy, more capable of 
 rendering him constant and effective assistance than was 
 any marquis of Montferrat or of Este. And Frederick I. 
 perceived the fact. A series of compacts were made 
 between the emperor and several important cities of 
 the north, creating or defining the military and financial 
 obligations of the contracting cities to the empire.^ 
 But the resistance of the Lombard league prevented 
 this system of special treaties from being widely ex- 
 tended, and the Peace of Constance in 1183, by giving 
 an exclusively binding force to the laws and customs 
 of the several cities of the league, shows clearly that 
 the time had gone by for imperial legislation on a 
 large scale in Italy. 
 
 Of all the medieval emperors Frederick II. alone seems 
 to have the true temper of the legislator. Brought up 
 amid the motley population of Palermo, amid Greeks and 
 
 on the lawful causes of disturbance, and other ancient constitutions 
 concerning divorce, the dissolution of matrimony and the lawful revocation 
 of gifts." 
 
 ^E.g. in 1162 with Genoa, Ravenna, Cremona, Lucca. Weilaud, i 
 Nos. 211, 212, 213, 214. '' 
 
i68 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 Lombards, Franks and Normans, he was familiar with the 
 clash of personal laws.-' As king of Sicily he succeeded 
 a race of legislator kings, and could command the services 
 of trained legists and officials. As emperor he felt him- 
 self to be one of the descendants of the great legislators 
 of antiquity, of Constantine, Justinian, Theodosius, Charles 
 the Great. We cannot unfortunately tell how much of 
 the language and thought of Frederick's constitutions 
 and charters is due to the emperor himself, and how 
 much to his advisers and to the traditional style of the 
 Sicilian chancery. Gregory IX. attributed the consti- 
 tutions to James, Archbishop of Capua, while a general 
 tradition ascribes their compilation to Peter de la Vigne.^ 
 The rules of the chancery inform us that much of the 
 work of the Sicilian government was carried on without 
 the personal intervention of the sovereign.^ But it is 
 impossible to read the laws and charters of the reign 
 without coming to the conclusion that they are pervaded 
 by the same spirit. The deep impression made upon 
 his contemporaries by Frederick's personality, his un- 
 doubted energy and high intelligence, his singular de- 
 tachment from most of the current superstitions of his 
 day, his zeal for detail, his domineering will, his 
 passionate belief in the imperial prerogatives, force us to 
 
 ' For the legal condition of the south of Italy, cf. Brandileone, 77 
 diritto Romano nelle legge Nbrmanne e sveve del reg^io di Sidlia ; Perla, Del 
 diritto romano giustiniano nelle provincie meridionale d^ Italia prima delle 
 Assize Normanne, in the Archimo Storico Napolitano, vol. x. ; Brandileone, 
 n diritto Oreco-Roraano nelV Italia meridionale sotto la dominazione 
 Normanna [Archivio Juridico, vol. xxxvi.]. 
 
 ^ There is a clause at the end of the constitutions which attributes the 
 compilation to Peter de la Vigne. As it is not to be found in the Greek 
 text or in the oldest Mss., it is judged to be an interpolation. Conrad IV., 
 however, in 1252 speaks of the Constitutio Petri de Vinea. For the whole 
 subject, cf. H.B., Intr., p. cxxviii. 
 
 ^ Statuta Officiorum, Winkelmann, Acta imperii, No. 988, vol. i, 
 pp. 733-7. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 169 
 
 believe that the main initiative lay with him.^ The man 
 who struck the first gold coin which might have come 
 from a mint of ancient Eome or Greece, who made the 
 first reasonable treaty with the Saracens in Palestine, 
 and who insisted upon knowing how every penny was 
 spent by his treasury,^ is just the man to have inspired 
 the constitutions of the kingdom of Sicily, and the 
 administrative work "which was carried out there. There 
 are also many personal notes struck in the charters of 
 the time, which reveal Frederick's active interest in the 
 work of government, and though his life was spent in 
 almost constant warfare, the chancery followed the army, 
 and the kingdom of Sicily was often governed from the 
 camp. It is his prerogative, he repeats over and over 
 again, to issue laws and to adjust the legal system to 
 the changing needs of society.^ The constitutions of 
 the kingdom of Sicily are full of conceptions, partly 
 derived from Roman jurisprudence, partly derived from 
 a cool and reasonable outlook on the world. The legis- 
 lator measures institutions by the law of nature, by his 
 own high standard of reasonableness. Trial by battle 
 he considers to be barbarous : he makes no scruple to 
 abolish it, or to contract its use within the narrowest 
 limits.* (Jrdeals are superstitious and unjust. They are 
 
 ' A characteristically passionate outburst is detailed in the Amiales 
 Pliwmtini Ghibellini, 1236 [SS. xviii., p. 474], "Ascendens in equo 
 elevata voce coram principibus conquestus fuit, dicens quoniam pereo-rini 
 et viatores ambulant ubique, ego autem non sum ausus agredi per terras 
 imperii." Then he seizes the eagle and dashes across the stream. 
 
 -Statuta Officiorum, Wiukelmann, Acta, No. 988, vol. i,, pp. 7,33-7. 
 
 ^S.B., v., 958, "Imperialis excellentia cui datum est leges condere," and 
 S.B., vi. 156-61, "Nil veterum principum auctoritati detrahimus si juxta 
 novorum temporum qualitatem ... nova jura producimus." 
 
 ■iHe allows its use in the case of the trial of a poisoner, homicide, or 
 traitor, when all other modes of proof have been exhausted. Elaborate 
 and curious provisions are inserted for ensuring a fair fight ; cf. Kington 
 Life of Frederick II., vol. i., pp. 384-6. 
 
I70 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 to cease forthwith. The use of love philtres is absurd. 
 The people must be educated to see it. It is against 
 the law of nature that daughters should not succeed to 
 their father's inheritance, in case there are no sons.^ 
 The law of nature must prevail. " The authority of the 
 Jus gentium supported by natural reason, permits any- 
 one to have a guardian for his person." ° Rules are 
 accordingly laid down determining the conditions of 
 tutelage. It is in such a spirit that Frederick II. 
 approaches the task of legislation.^ 
 
 If any government could have laid the basis for a 
 common Italian law it was the government of Frede- 
 rick, for the instinct of codification was strong within 
 it. But the obstacles in Frederick's path were too 
 great to be overcome by any one life, however full and 
 impressive. His constitutional position was one thing 
 in the kingdom of Sicily, another thing in Central and 
 Northern Italy, and a third thing in Germany. In his 
 own Sicilian kingdom he could legislate as the Norman 
 kings had legislated, he could prolong the great high- 
 road which they had already begun to engineer, which 
 was to lead from the confusion of personal laws to a 
 territorial common law for the Regno. But outside the 
 Regno conditions were different. Here there were a 
 mass of cities, all of them possessing "good and ap- 
 proved customs," many of them active laboratories of 
 statute law.* How could a Roman emperor legislate for 
 Bologna or for Venice or for Milan ? How could he 
 
 ' Const. Regn. Sic, iii. 26. ^ Const. Regn. Sic, iii. 16. 
 
 3 For Frederick's rationalism, cf. U.S., v. 491, 493; Constitutiones Regni 
 Siciliae, iii. 73 ; ii. 31 ; ii. 32 ; Novae Constitutiones Regni Siailiae, iii. 28. 
 
 ^ The oldest town statutes are: Genoa, 1056; Verona, 1100-1228; Mantua, 
 1116 ; Pistora, 1117 ; Genoa, 1143; Campagna, 1161 ; Pisa, 1162 ; Brescia, 
 1200-80 ; Milan, 1216 ; Ferrara, 1208 ; Modena, before 1213 ; Parma 
 before 1226 ; Bergamo, before 1237. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 171 
 
 control the public law which regulated the constitu- 
 tional machinery of these cities ? How could he control 
 the treaties which bound together a Tuscan or a Lom- 
 bard league ? Still weaker was his position in Germany. 
 In Italy written law was the rule, and imperial consti- 
 tutions, though they might excite contempt, would never 
 arouse surprise ; but in Germany the place of written 
 was taken by un^vritten custom ; the place of legislation 
 \yj the unrecorded decisions of the royal court. The 
 towns who possessed their customs, the nations who 
 clung to their traditional and archaic law, the princes 
 who had received special legal privileges, and who 
 legislated in their own courts, these elements of society 
 were not receptive of external legal influence. When 
 the emperor legislated it was either to confirm or to 
 concede. 
 
 Sicily was Frederick's delight ^ ; Germany, with its 
 inclement skies, its unwritten law, its turbulent nobility, 
 was distasteful to him. He visited it three times only, 
 he complained of the hardships of the journey, he left 
 the country to be governed by his sons, he sanctioned 
 the usurpations of the German princes, and legalized 
 the dissidence of the German political system. Yet he 
 never intended to relinquish any particle of the empire. 
 It was no part of his programme to become a mere 
 Italian or Sicilian king. The city of Aix was in his 
 eyes still the second imperial capital,^ and no emperor 
 since Otto I. showed such an intelligent appreciation 
 
 1 Xorae Cmutitutiones Regni Siailiae, iii. 14., "Qualiter peculiaris regui 
 nostri Sicilie popiilus oujus specialiter nos cura sollieitat, cujus nobis est 
 hereditas omni possessione preclarior " ; and i. 95, " Regnum ipsum pre 
 ceteris velut eleotum quoddam viriduarium inter agros cura precipna 
 colere disponemus." It is to be the "invidia principum et norma reg- 
 norum." 
 
 ^E.B., ii. 649, "Quae sedes et caput regni familiari prerogativa inter 
 Cisalpinas resplendens ecclesias regali et imperiali triumphat fiducia." 
 
1/2 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 of Germany's mission in the Slavonic East.-^ Careful 
 that the Sicilian in him shall not obliterate the Eoman, 
 he quits his "peculiar people, his inheritance more 
 brilliant than any possession, his chosen spot of green 
 among the fields," to labour and fight under the 
 hot Italian sun in the month of August, that he 
 may preserve the empire from being broken to pieces. 
 When the Tartars were threatening Europe in 1240, 
 he wrote to the Senate of Eome to point out that 
 throughout his life he had spurned delights, that he 
 had crossed the rough sea and the rugged mountains 
 of Germany for one object only — to consolidate and 
 unify the forces of the empire.^ The encyclicals of the 
 emperor are full of this imperial language. He felt 
 that it was not without a purpose that Providence 
 had united in one hand the sceptres of Jerusalem, of 
 Sicily and of Germany. The star which ruled the 
 destiny of the emperor was plainly pointing to the 
 monarchy of the world. ^ 
 
 The conflict of facts with ideals has seldom been 
 more tragically illustrated. For all his imperial senti- 
 ment and enlightened zeal for legislation, Frederick 
 added scarcely anything to imperial law in Italy. His 
 
 1 Cf. H.B., ii., pp. 423, 424, for Frederick's interesting letter on the 
 races of Livonia in 1224 ; E.B.^ ii., pp. 549-552, for Frederick's privilege 
 to Hermann, master of the German Order, 1226 ; H.B., iii. 497, for 
 Frederick's letter to the Stadingi, 1230 ; and cf. H.B., ii., p. 625 ; iv., pp. 
 822-824, 940, 941. 
 
 '^E.B., v., p. 1140. 
 
 3 Cf. the remarkable encyclical of 1236 {H.B., iv., pp. 847-852]. Cf. also 
 H.B., v., p. 161 ["Qui fere totius orbis habenas universaliter mode- 
 ramur "], and Eccelin da Romano's letter to Frederick [H.B., v., p. 267], 
 and Frederick's letter to the Senator, Senate, and people of Rome in 1236 
 [H.B., iv., p. 901], in which, after reminding them of their former glory 
 and taunting them for having allovped Milan to insult them, he con- 
 tinues, "Ecce quod legem habetis et Caesarem qui pro exaltatione 
 Eoniani Imperii personam exposuit, thesauros aperuit, laboribus non 
 pepercit. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 173 
 
 ecclesiastical edicts against heretics, his solemn con- 
 firmation of all the old Eoman provisions on IcMsa 
 majestas, his edict against clerks refusing the sacra- 
 ments or omitting the mass, against monks moving 
 from place to place — all these are to be inscribed 
 among municipal charters. " That all and every cor- 
 poration [universitas]," so runs the tenth clause of 
 the Edictum contra infideles imperii Italicos, " which 
 is recognized to have received the privileges of juris- 
 diction or certain honours from us and the empire, 
 may answer worthily, we order all universities and 
 communes, under penalty of the loss of our favour 
 and the privation of their jurisdictional privileges, that 
 the present edict of our Serenity should be literally 
 and openly transcribed in the books of their statutes, 
 and that the transcript should be inviolably preserved ; 
 that their podestats, consuls and rectors should be 
 bound at the beginning of their office to swear to 
 observe the statute ; and that a proviso be added 
 that no license or leave to transgress it can on 
 any account be granted. . . . The corporation or 
 commune transgressing these statutes is to be deprived 
 of all jurisdictions, privileges and regalia. The podes- 
 tat, consul or rector who does not swear the oath on 
 taking office is to be deprived of all his goods, hence- 
 forth to be considered a private person, and to incur 
 the penalties of infamy."^ These were brave words, 
 and Frederick, legislating with ecclesiastical sentiment 
 and Eoman law on his side, could afibrd to use them. 
 There would be no great objection to making heresy 
 a matter of high treason. And ecclesiastical law was 
 necessarily of universal application. It would have 
 been more difficult to ask the towns to incorporate 
 
 ' Weiland, ii.. No. 213 ; and cf. H.B., {., p. 881 ; iii., p. 4. 
 
174 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 into their statutes new rules as to procedure or as to 
 private law. As a matter of fact, Frederick never 
 appears to have taken such a step/ The Popes and 
 the Lombard towns gave him an absorbing occupation 
 of a different character. He was driven to adopt a 
 policy, to which probably in an age of peace he would 
 not have consented. He was forced to buy municipal 
 support, wherever it could be purchased, by confirming 
 "the good uses and approved customs" of the Ghibelline 
 towns. ^ But in reality he conceived himself to be the 
 sole fountain of right. "They have offended against 
 our majesty, which is the living law upon earth, and 
 the source from which civil laws arise," he remarked 
 in 1232 of the Alexandrines and the Milanese.^ 
 Holding that no intermunicipal treaty or league was 
 valid unless the emperor had consented to it,* he 
 aimed at reducing the Lombards to such a state of 
 subservience as existed among the towns of the Sicilian 
 kingdom. When he negotiates with the Milanese after 
 Cortenuova in 1237, he speaks of "the jurisdiction 
 which we wish to have simply as any king in his 
 land." ^ He looks behind the liberties guaranteed by 
 the Peace of Constance, and sweeps them away. When 
 the Lombard towns did not appear on June 24, 1226, 
 
 ■■ Sentences passed by municipal courts in. the north of Italy must have 
 sometimes come up for the emperor to review. In 1230 he writes to the 
 Chapter of Lucca, telling it to carry out a sentence given by the Vicar of 
 Eainald of Spoleto in favour of a citizen of Pisa, " Quia singulis imperii 
 nostri fidelibus in suis judiciis tenemur adesse." H.B., iii., p. 200. 
 
 '^H.B., V. 116, 117, 155-177 ; vi. 21, 64, 164. 
 
 3 Bohmer-Ficker, Reg., 1959. 
 
 * H.B., v., p. 197, " Cum etiam sine assensu nostro et imperii contracta 
 fuerit societas supradicta." C'f. also H.B., v. 204, and ii. 614, 615, where 
 Frederick annuls the boundary treaty between Modena and Bologna ; 
 H.B., V. 265, vi. 339, where he absolves Chieri from all special pacts with 
 •cities, churches, nobles, colleges. 
 
 ^ Bohmer-Ficker, Reg., 2297 d. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 175 
 
 to atone for their misdemeanours, they were solemnly 
 excommunicated, and put to the ban of the empire 
 after due legal proceeding. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, 
 the princes and great men, the judges and lawyers of 
 the imperial court, declared them to have forfeited all 
 their rights and franchises, even those contained in the 
 Peace of Constance, and to be outlaws and enemies of 
 the Eeich. Thirteen cities — Milan, Brescia, Mantua, 
 Verona, Piacenza, Vercelli, Alexandria, Lodi, Treviso, 
 Padua, Vicenza, Bologna, Faenza — were involved in 
 this sentence, which was as impracticable as it was 
 magnificent. 
 
 A year later the sentence was recalled,-' but Frederick 
 never lost sight of his ultimate aim — the destruction of 
 the municipal autonomy guaranteed at Constance. So 
 in the negotiations of 1236 he demanded the surrender 
 of these liberties, and refused to have the Peace sub- 
 mitted to arbitration, declaring that it was injurious 
 to the empire and to ecclesiastical liberty, and that a 
 decision of the princes of the empire had laid down that 
 he was under no obligation "to observe a peace which 
 was made in evident prejudice of law and of the 
 empire."^ What wonder if the Milanese, distrusting the 
 prospects of a stable peace, replied in 1237, "We know 
 your cruelty, for we have learnt by experience. We 
 would rather die under our shields by the sword, the 
 lance or the arrow, than by the rope, famine and fire."' 
 So also he makes light of setting aside the authority 
 of podestats, consuls and communes, of granting a privi- 
 lege non obstante some recognized local custom or law, 
 
 1 Bohmer-Picker, Reg., 1693 ; Wmkelmann, Acta, 263. 
 2Bohmer-Ficker, Reg., 1638', 1658, 2197', 2289", 2374"; Ficker, ForscL, 
 ii. 895 ; Viia Greg., ap. Muratori, iii. 589. 
 3 Matt. Paris, iii. 496. 
 
176 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 of appointing municipal magistrates.^ His vicars try 
 ci'sdl and criminal cases, name judges and notaries, tutors, 
 curators and guardians, grant franchises, make natural 
 sons legitimate, and exercise all tlie functions of supreme 
 power, " saving in all things our imperial justice."^ A 
 system of government was applied to the north and 
 centre of Italy, which was more complete and defined 
 than any which had been devised by Frederick's pre- 
 decessors. 
 
 A general legate \Legatus totius Italiae] represented 
 the imperial power from the Alps to the confines of the 
 kingdom of Xaples. Under him were five general 
 vicars, each governing a defined district. And under 
 the vicars there were captaias nominated by the emperor 
 in the principal to\\Tis. The system of government did 
 not begin to act regularly until 1237, when Frederick 
 broke finally with the Lombard league, and it was dis- 
 solved at Frederick's death in 1250. But it contained 
 in it the seeds of a national system. Almost all the 
 imperial agents whose names have come down to us 
 were Italians ; they exercised full authority — administra- 
 tive, military, judicial. They were assisted by trained 
 Italian judges, drawn from the chief to^^Tis of Northern 
 Italv. from Parma and Eeooio, Milan and Boloma. Pisa 
 and Florence.^ With time and with tranquillity such a 
 staff" might have done much to promote a common 
 ItaHan jurisprudence. But the Lombard league and the 
 Papacy rendered this consummation impossible. As 
 
 '^H.B., i., p. 34, where Frederick grants to the Ugolini full power to 
 build and rebuild in their lands in the cities of Florence and Bologna, 
 "iSTuIlaunquam propria potestate consule consulibus vel communi collegio 
 vel universitate ...contradicente" ; and cf. H.B., ii. 309-11, iv. 498; 
 Bohmer-Ficker, 2314, 2314 a; Ficker, Forsch., ii. 531. 
 
 '^H.B., ii. 41-2. Powers of the imperial vicar in Tuscany. 
 
 ^Ficker, iii. 174. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 177 
 
 the Gruelph resistance organized itself, the emperor was 
 forced to abjure pacific appointments. The rule of 
 warriors succeeded the rule of prelates. From 1239 to 
 1249 Frederick's young son Enzio is legate of the sacred 
 empire of the whole of Italy, and his military talents 
 justified the selection. From 1232 to 1259 the real 
 imperial vicar in the Trevisan March is Eccelin da 
 Eomano, one of the monsters of Italian history, whose 
 legend lives still in the minds of the Trevisan peasantry 
 after a lapse of more than six hundred years. The 
 division of Lombardy into two vicariates, divided at the 
 important strategical centre at Pavia, was probably dic- 
 tated by military reasons ; and the appointment of local 
 Ghibelline lords to the vicariates is possibly due to the 
 same necessity, for it was a violation of one of Frederick's 
 cherished administrative principles.-^ Stern fate forced 
 the emperor more and more into the position of the 
 mere party leader. In the impassioned conflict which 
 rent the north of Italy from 1237 to 1250 the machinery 
 of his government assumes a military and despotic 
 character. Yet even in the later years of Frederick's 
 reign it is noticeable that some of his vicars were chosen 
 to fill the ofiice of podestat in important Ghibelline 
 towns, which afibrds at least some presumption that 
 they were men of character.^ Whatever happened 
 Frederick never lost sight of the great administrative 
 task which he had set before him. It was character- 
 istic of the man who had gone out of his way to warn 
 the German nobles against foolish expenditure at a 
 court festival, that during the autumn of 1239, when he 
 was besieging Milan, he sent despatch after despatch to 
 his agents in the kingdom of Sicily regulating even 
 the minutest details of forest or of household manage- 
 
 1 H.B., v., pp. 786, 914. 2 ^^^ j^ p cdlxxvii. 
 
 VOL II. M 
 
178 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 ment.^ It was characteristic of him too that in spite of 
 the war he made in 1240 a most important reform in 
 the judicial organization of Italy. 
 
 During the earlier years of his reign Frederick resided 
 mainly in the kingdom of Sicily, and there is no sign 
 that any of his Sicilian judges exercised jurisdiction 
 in Italy or Germany. The great court of Sicily, pre- 
 sided over by the great justiciar, which was certainly 
 established under the later Norman kings, and which 
 during Frederick's absence in Germany in 1216 appears 
 to have sat at Palermo, did indeed extend its functions 
 after Frederick's return. We hear no more of the great 
 justiciar of Apulia, who under the later Norman kings 
 seems to have been the chief ruler of the continental 
 portion of the Regno. His functions are absorbed in 
 those of the Sicilian court, which establishes itself in 
 Apulia, is fixed there and does not follow the emperor 
 outside the Regno or even to Sicily. From this court 
 there is an appeal to the personal justice of the emperor, 
 and when the emperor goes to SicUy he is accompanied 
 by many of the judges of his Curia, who assist him 
 in the exercise of his appellate and his immediate 
 jurisdiction. But the great justiciar remains behind, 
 not only as president of the great court, but as per- 
 manent viceroy of Apulia. There can be little doubt 
 that in course of time Frederick established a supreme 
 court and a master justiciar of Sicily, for he quitted 
 the island in 1227 never to return again. But the 
 most important court remained the Apulian court, 
 which until 1240 did not follow the king. But in 
 
 ^The series is most remarkable \n.B., v., pp. 409-63]. The ordinances 
 for the Stvdium generale of Naples appear to have been issued about the 
 same time [t'fi., pp. 493-7]. Napoleon's famous Moscow memorandum on the 
 French theatre suggests itself as a paralleL 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 179 
 
 1240 Frederick made another arrangement. He had 
 been absent in Germany in 1235, and hardly had he 
 returned when the troubles of a Lombard war came 
 upon him. Circumstances were compelling him to 
 spend a far larger share of his time outside the 
 Regno than he either contemplated or desired, and 
 where the emperor came, there litigation was gathered 
 together. Judges must follow his court, and some of 
 these judges must be drawn from the highly trained 
 legal circle of the Regno. Already in 1239 Roffrid of 
 San Germano, the famous south Italian legist, and 
 Laurence of Parma are hearing a case in the royal 
 camp at Padua, and in the spring of 1240 Frederick 
 comes to the conclusion that the master justiciar and 
 four judges must follow his court whithersoever it 
 might go.^ 
 
 While other officials, two captains, and great justiciars 
 are created to fill the gap in the Regno, henceforward a 
 strong Sicilian court travels with the king. 
 
 Under happier circumstances this court might have 
 done much to fix a common standard of legal practice 
 and procedure in Italy. ^ The master justiciar was to 
 receive "all petitions, both of justice and of grace, 
 both from the Regno and from the empire. His court 
 was to be at once a supreme court of equity, a 
 supreme court of appeal, and a court of first instance 
 for the determination of certain classes of litigation, 
 such as cases concerning fiefs entered on the royal 
 rolls, high treason, litigation between courtiers, the 
 complaints of the destitute. It was also to act as a 
 
 ^ Novae Constitutiones de officio Magistri Justitiarii ; H B yi t)T) 
 156-161. ■ ■' ■' ^^' 
 
 2 " Et ut secundum ordinem singula tractaremus Curie nostra providimus 
 ordinare justitiam a qua velut a fonte rivuli per regnum undique norma 
 justitie derivetur." 
 
i8o THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 court of reference, to give advice, that is to say, to the 
 inferior judges upon perplexed points of law and to 
 supervise them ; and a written record was to be kept of 
 its decisions. It was the first attempt to establish a 
 supreme professional court for the Italian portions of the 
 empire. Had the dynasty survived, this court would 
 assuredly have run a brilliant course. It was not to be 
 expected that a court manned by Sicilian judges would 
 have had much weight in Germany. There were already 
 signs of a feeling that the Curia Alemannie could not be 
 held anywhere but in Germany itself, and, if a court 
 of princes, most of them German,^ sitting with the 
 emperor at Naples or Palermo appeared an inconvenient 
 and improper tribunal to a Flemish litigant, how much 
 more inconvenient, how much more improper this inno- 
 vation of a purely Italian and professional bench ? For 
 as a matter of fact the justiciar and his staff are 
 Sicilians without exception. But in Italy this objection 
 would not be felt. Although there was a great diversity 
 of municipal law in Italy, yet there appears to have 
 been less of strict provincial or aristocratic sentiment 
 in legal matters than in Germany.^ While a Saxon 
 would have rebelled against a Swabian judge, and a 
 Swabian against a Saxon judge, a Bolognese would be 
 invited to Eome as senator, a Lombard into a Tuscan 
 town as podestat. Indeed the internecine strife of the 
 Italian cities had long familiarized them with the ad- 
 vantage of appointing some stranger to exercise the office 
 of magistrate, and the habit of resorting to arbitration 
 
 ^Ficker, Forsch., iii., pp. 346-7. Generally German magnates alone 
 are among the judgment-finders when a German case has to be decided in 
 Italy. But there are exceptions. 
 
 ^Ficker, ii., pp. 270, 271. Ficker observes [iii. 344-57] that the principle 
 of Judicium parium was only applied in Italy {a) in feudal cases, (6) in cases 
 involving the infliction of penalties on a crown vassal or a town. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 
 
 both in private concerns and in intermunicipal politics, 
 which is sufficiently well marked in Italian history, must 
 have helped to divest Frederick's new Sicilian court of 
 any air of unfamiliarity. It was merely an improved 
 professional version of that fortuitous concourse of 
 nobles and clergy which had helped the emperor to do 
 justice at the diet of Roncaglia and elsewhere on his 
 travels through Italy. 
 
 "We know little of the history of this experiment. It 
 would appear, however, that there were no limits set to 
 the competence of this travelling court. When Civita- 
 nova petitions for the confirmation of its ancient law, the 
 emperor orders the general vicar of the march to make a 
 report upon that law and to send it on to the imperial 
 judges, who will see what parts are to be confirmed and 
 what parts are not to be confirmed.^ If municipal 
 customs are to be unified, here clearly is a powerful 
 engine ready to Frederick's hands for the purpose. The 
 court will try a case in first instance between the Abbot 
 of S. Salvator and two citizens of Sienna.^ It will hear 
 fiscal appeals from the general captains and general 
 vicars.^ It will try cases of high treason. When 
 Frederick makes confirmation of judicial immunity to 
 a town, as for instance to Fano in 1243, he stipulates 
 that the citizens shall be amenable to "our great court 
 or the court of our vicars in the march, if the magnitude 
 or character of the cases demand." * He intends his 
 court to be a great fountain of law, a great leveller 
 of inequality. 
 
 The services which the Hohenstauifen dynasty might 
 have rendered to Italian civilization may be conjectured 
 from what Frederick was actually able to perform within 
 
 1 H.B., vi. 242. 2 lb., vi. 252, 4. 
 
 3 Ficker, i., p. 371. ^ s:.B., vi. 67, 83. 
 
i82 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 the limits of the Regno. When in 1220 the emperor 
 returned to his kingdom, a full-grown man of twenty- 
 six, he found aU in disorder. Thirty-four years of 
 anarchy, intrigue, and bloodshed had passed over the 
 land since the death of WUliam the Good.^ German 
 adventurers and Norman nobles warred on one another 
 without restraint and oppressed the commons. Saracen 
 tribes ruled the western parts of the island and rushed 
 down on every occasion from the mountains to pillage 
 the Christians of the plain. The nobles had ceased to 
 render the customary services to the crown, and charters, 
 which had been easily enough procured from a usurper 
 like Tancred, an absentee like Otto, or a condottiere like 
 Markwald, were exhibited as evidence of their political 
 independence. The greater part of the royal domain 
 had been occupied by the towns or the nobles. The 
 famous Sicilian navy had gone utterly to decay, and the 
 central organization which had been so powerfully 
 constructed by the great Eoger, was now broken in 
 pieces. 
 
 In the work of reconstruction Frederick was assisted 
 by the impressive tradition of a strong and wealthy 
 government, which had created institutions and issued 
 laws, by the comparative smallness of the kingdom, 
 by the number of antagonistic creeds and races and 
 societies into which it was divided, by the survival of 
 Eoman law, by the intelligence of a few highly-trained 
 jurists in South Italy who knew what the good govern- 
 ment of the Xorman kings had meant, and by what 
 means it might be restored, and above all by the 
 atmosphere of refinement and luxury which prevailed 
 
 ^All traces of Henry VI.'s Sicilian legislation have perished. It may, 
 however, have been merely administrative. Cf. Otton. Fris. Cont. S. Bias, 
 SS. XX. 328. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 183 
 
 in the great South-Italian and Sicilian towns, whose 
 political ambitions had long been extinguished by a 
 strong monarchy, a thriving trade, and a warm climate. 
 Still the situation was one to tax the highest powers 
 of the statesman. Apart from the mere difficulty of 
 restoring order, there was the administrative and judi- 
 cial system to be rebuilt, the Saracens to be vanquished, 
 the relation of the towns to the monarchy to be regu- 
 lated, the penal and procedural law to be reformed, 
 the relations between the various codes and customs 
 to be adjusted, the royal domain to be reconquered, the 
 fiscal system to be re-organized, the navy to be created 
 afresh. 
 
 Frederick dealt with all these questions thoroughly 
 and decisively in the light of an end which he clearly 
 perceived and strenuously pursued, the unification of 
 the Regno under a strong autocracy. He crushed the 
 Saracens and transported them from Sicily to the 
 rock fortress of Lucera, converting them at one blow 
 from native rebels into exile mercenaries. He de- 
 stroyed feudal castles, cowed the nobility, revoked 
 all grants which had been extorted by fraud or which 
 conflicted with the interests of the state, called in all 
 fiefs which had been granted by his predecessors, 
 removed all those who had usurped judicial authority, 
 ordered a systematic inquisition into the assizes of 
 King Roger and into the uses and customs which 
 had existed under Eoger and WiUiam H.^ Besides 
 these administrative measures he issued an assize to 
 the effect that all deeds should be written upon parch- 
 ment, with a view to securing the permanence of 
 judicial records. But although many of the assizes 
 of 1220 and 1221 are known to be lost, Frederick's 
 
 1 Winkelmann, Acta Imperii inedita, 761, p. 605. 
 
i84 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 main legislative work dates from his return to the Regno 
 after the crusade. In 1231 he issued from Melfi a 
 great series of ordinances, the Liber Augustalis or 
 ^aaiXiKos v6/xo9, which is far the fullest and most 
 adequate body of legislation promulgated by any 
 western ruler since the death of Charles the Great. 
 This body of constitutions was afterwards supplemented 
 by several additional assizes or novels, but no complete 
 collection of Frederick's laws was ever made, with the 
 result, firstly, that many of the assizes have been lost,^ 
 and, secondly, that it is impossible accurately to deter- 
 mine the dates of those assizes which were issued after 
 1231. 
 
 Like Napoleon I., Frederick was not a revolutionary 
 but an eclectic. The Norman invaders had brought 
 with them the Frankish law,^ and their administrative 
 system was Frankish in all its essentials, but they came 
 to a land where Eoman law was still living, a land 
 inhabited by Greeks and Lombards, Saracens and Jews, 
 and they were forced to respect their various laws and 
 customs.^ The first of the Norman legislators, Roger 
 IL, made diligent inquiry into the customs of foreign 
 kings and races with a view to introducing whatsoever 
 seemed fairest and most useful into his own kingdom.* 
 But at the same time he expressly confirmed the 
 
 1 Cf. Bohmer-Ficker, Regeste'ii, 3698, 3394, where a lost constitution is 
 referred to. 
 
 ^ French was the language at the Court of Palermo under William II. 
 [Ugo FcdcaTulo, ed. Siragusa, p. 127]. For the very slight traces of Scan- 
 dinavian law and for the analogies with Breton custom in the municipal 
 laws of Sicily, cf. Briinneck, Sidliens mittelatterliche Stadtrechte, Intro., 
 p. XXXV., Pt. ii., pp. 1, 24, and Tris ancienne Cmistume de BritaigTie, ed. 
 Bourdot de Eiohebourg. 
 
 ' De Grossis Catania Sacra, p. 89. Charter of 1169 [quoted by Briinneck], 
 "Latini, Graeci, Judaei et Saraceni unus quisque juxta suam legem 
 judicetur." 
 
 * Ugo Falcando, ed. Siracusa, p. 6. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 185 
 
 manners, customs, and laws of his subjects except 
 in so far as they conflicted with his own edicts.^ 
 His code is brief, severe, autocratic, Roman. In some 
 places he even literally reproduces passages from the 
 Pandects and the code of Justinian, and the same 
 remark applies to his successors, William I. and William 
 11.^ There are too in Roger's code penalties which 
 appear to come from Byzantium, such as flogging and 
 the mutilation of the nose. Frederick follows in the 
 same line. His constitutions deal but little with 
 private law, for that was a sphere which might safely be 
 left to municipal legislation.^ Yet a difiicult subject — 
 the law of protimesis or pre-emption, is cleared up in a 
 luminous constitution copied from a novel of the Byzan- 
 tine Emperor Romanus Senior Lacapenus.* The rules 
 as to the succession of fiefs are revised, for that was 
 a matter which touched the fisc, and a custom prevailing 
 in some parts of the kingdom which excluded women 
 from succeeding to the property of counts, barons, or 
 knights, was abolished as contrary to right reason or 
 natural law. The law of prescription was also dealt 
 with, and this appears to be the chief point of private 
 law in which the constitutions of the kingdom of Sicily 
 
 ^Merkel, Commentatio, p. 16 (1), p. 33, "Leges a nostra majestate 
 noviter promulgatas generaliter ab omnibus precipimus observari : 
 moribus, consuetudinibus, legibus non cassatis pro varietate populorum 
 nostro regno subjectorum ... nisi forte nostris his sanctionibus adversari 
 quid in eis mauifesti juris videatur." So in 1150 he issues an instruction 
 [in Greek] to the judges in Calabria and the Val de Grace as to the custom 
 of succession (BrUnneck, Sicib'ens mittelatterliche Stadtrechte, pp. 240-6). 
 
 ^Briinneck, p. xxii. 
 
 3 Yet the Constitutiones override all municipal law (S.B., iv. 24, 72). 
 The only exception is Palermo in virtue of a privilege of 1233 (KB , 
 iv. 454). 
 
 *Jus Graeco-Rom. ed. Zachariae a Lingenthal, iii., Col. iii., Nov. ii. 
 p. 234. Cf. BrUnneck, pp. xxix., xxx.; Zeitschrift fur Rechtsgeschichte, 
 xiv., p. 129. 
 
i86 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 affect the practice of the Sicilian towns. ^ But the main 
 subjects of Frederick's legislation are the penal code, 
 procedure, and the construction of the necessary organs 
 of government. 
 
 Frederick starts by unifying the penal law. There 
 had been one tariff of compensation for the Lombards, 
 another for the Normans, while the penal code had been 
 different for those who lived Eoman law. But fixed 
 tariffs \\'ere clearly irrational and multiple penal stand- 
 ards inconvenient. Henceforth the criminal law is to 
 be one and it is also to be administered by royal judges 
 in royal courts, and three towns alone are allowed the 
 privilege of retaining their independent criminal jurisdic- 
 tion. Again, while in the main following the Roman penal 
 law, Frederick and his advisers stop to discriminate and 
 improve. The aestimatio or penal composition went, ac- 
 cording to Eoman law, to the injured party, but according 
 to the custom of some provinces in the Regno entirely to 
 the fisc. Frederick steers a middle course, and assigns 
 one third to the injured party and two thirds to the 
 fisc.^ Again, he steers a middle course between the 
 Eoman and Lombard law on the protection of immovable 
 property. The Eoman had held that if one person 
 violently deprived another of possession before judg- 
 ment, he was not only bound to restore possession, 
 but he lost whatever proprietary rights might have 
 belonged to him. or else if he had no such rights he was 
 compelled to pay their equivalent in money. The Lom- 
 bard, on the other hand, had assigned a paltry fine of six 
 shillings to the offence. Frederick saw that the Lombard 
 
 1 Briinneck, p. xxto. 
 
 - Const. Regn. Sic, iii., 42 ; Inst. Just., iv. 4, 7. I am indebted for my 
 references to Eoman law to F. Brandileone, U diritto Romano nelle legge 
 Normanne e Sveve. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 187 
 
 was too lenient, the Roman too stern. He ordered the 
 intruder to restore possession, and he fixed the penalty 
 at half the value of the immovables.^ He removes the 
 Eoman laws against calumny with au explanatory com- 
 ment that the calumny must not merely be unproven, 
 but must be evident.^ He tempers some of the severe 
 ordinances of his Norman predecessors.^ 
 
 On procedure Frederick is equally sweeping. Here 
 too he begins by unifying. " We wish to have," he 
 says, " no distinction of persons ; but whether it be a 
 Frank or a Roman or a Lombard who is plaintiff or 
 defendant, we will administer justice to him equally."* 
 Then he goes on to cast out the irrational elements from 
 procedure. He abolishes the ordeal, not for the reason 
 on account of which Innocent HI. had denounced it, 
 that it was a tempting of God, but because it did not 
 regard the nature of things or respect truth. '^ He 
 abolishes trial by battle except in the case of secret 
 homicides, traitors, and poisoners, because it cannot 
 be called a true proof so much as a kind of divination." 
 In the cases in which the duel is admissible, its practice 
 is discouraged and its inequalities diminished. No duel 
 can be fought except with the leave of the supreme 
 
 1 Const. Regn. Sic, i. 25 ; Liutp., 148 ; Cod. Just, viii. 4, 7. 
 
 '' Const. Regn. Sic, ii. 14.; Cod. Just, ii., 7. 1 ; ix. 46. 3. 
 
 3 Comt. Regn. Sic, iii. 88-89. 
 
 * Const. Regn. Sic, ii. 17. 
 
 ^Cf. Comt. Regn. Sic, ii. 31. "Leges que a quibusdam simplicibus 
 sunt dicti paribiles, que nee reruni naturam respiciunt nee veritatem 
 attendant, nos qui veram legum scientiam perscrutamur, et aspernamur 
 errores, a nostris judiciis separamus." Cf. also the remarkable language 
 on love-philtres, iii. 73 ; Bohmer, Reg., No. 310. 
 
 ^The municipal law of Messina [e. 44] somewhat differs from the con- 
 stitution, extending the Duel to all cases which involve loss of life or limb 
 as their penalty. As the clause expressly refers to a royal ordinance, it 
 is possible that Frederick's constitution may have been expanded in this 
 sense, and that we have lost the revised version. 
 
1 88 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 court. The lord of the beaten champion is executed. 
 In place of these barbaric practices procedure and proof 
 must be as far as possible in writing. Instead of the 
 verbal proc^ama^io which was current, at anyrate in aU 
 parts of Apulia, save in the city of Benevento, the 
 indictment was to be delivered in a written document, 
 the libellus of Roman law. The proofs were to be 
 mainly in writing/ and the sentences of the court were 
 to be recorded not upon the fragile papyrus in use at 
 Naples and Salerno and Amalfi, but upon enduring 
 parchment. 
 
 Another feature of Frederick's legislation upon pro- 
 cedure is his desire for speed. Judges are to cut 
 down the perorations of the advocates, and the advocate 
 whose dilatory eloquence is fatal to his client is con- 
 demned to pay the costs. The defendant is to be 
 summoned to court by a peremptory summons, which 
 is to be delivered, in case of his absence, at the house 
 in which his wife or his daughter or his family may 
 be staying. As soon as the libellus or indictment is 
 presented, the trial must proceed. The interval of 
 deliberation allowed to the defendant by the Eoman 
 law is abolished. After the minutes of the evidence 
 have been taken, the advocates have only two days 
 to dispute about the law. Dilatory exceptions are 
 carefully scrutinized and limited. The rules laid 
 down by the Roman law as to contumacy in civil 
 cases are substantially preserved, but all the processes 
 are quickened.^ 
 
 The royal courts are not merely to be business-like, 
 
 1 Const. Regn. Sic, ii. 32. 
 
 2 Comi. Regn. Sic, i., 44, 92, 97, 100, 102 ; ii., 18, 19, 23. 21, 24 ; Cod. 
 Just., iii. 1, 13. 3 and 4 ; vii. 72. 9, 39. 8. 3, 43. 9 ; Novell, liii. 3 ; Cod. Just, 
 iii. 19. 2 ; vii. 50. 2 ; viii. 36. 12, 13 ; ix. 1. 9 ; ix. 1. 1; iii. 8. 4 ; iii. 8. 1 ; 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, Civilprozess, iii. 300-311. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 189 
 
 they are also to have full control over the conduct of 
 a case. It is one of Frederick's principles that processes 
 should be as little as possible dependent upon the will 
 of the parties. If for instance the plaintiff and defendant 
 agree to prorogue a trial without leave of the court they 
 must pay a fine of a hundred augustales} The machin- 
 ations of individuals must not be allowed to make 
 litigation immoral. The plaintiff in a criminal case 
 who has been induced by a bribe to desist from his 
 accusation without leave of the court must pay double 
 the sum which he has received. After the parties have 
 once appeared in court, no composition can be made 
 without leave of the judge, nor can the two parties by 
 mutual consent agree to abandon a case after once a 
 citation has been issued, except in a civil action, and 
 then only with permission of the court. Eecourse is 
 no longer to be had to arbitrators voluntarily chosen 
 by the parties — a habit which apparently throve in 
 Naples, Amalfi and Sorrento — but all causes were to 
 be heard by the royal judges.^ 
 
 There were other important innovations in the law 
 of procedure. The defendant in a criminal trial was 
 permitted to be represented by counsel. A powerful 
 instrument for the detection of crime and heresy was 
 found in the inquisition, which had been long effectively 
 employed by the Norman kings of England, and 
 which in Sicily as well as in England was a specially 
 royal method of procedure. The Roman law of con- 
 tumacy in criminal cases was modified according to the 
 dictates of reason and humanity. The Code and the 
 
 1 The augustalis was equal to a fourth of a gold ounce, that is to saj 
 it amounted to about twenty shillings of our money. Const. Regni. Sic.,. 
 i. 104. 5; Just. Imt, iv. 16. 1; Nov., cxii., c. 2. 
 
 2 Const. Regn. Sic, i. 81-3, ii. 15, 16. 
 
igo THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 Digest condemned the man, who, having been accused of 
 a capital charge, remained contumacious for a year, to 
 lose his property, whether he possessed sons or not, with- 
 out any further right of defence. Frederick had no 
 desire to encourage contumacy, but he saw that the 
 rule fell with unjust severity upon the innocent. The 
 Sicilian constitution declares that as soon as the con- 
 tumacy is verified the offender is to lose one-third of his 
 moveables ; that after a year of contumacy the rest of 
 his property is to go to the fisc, provided that he should 
 have no sons, and that he should be condemned to the 
 awful penalties of outlawry, to live, that is to say, as an 
 outcast, who may be injured or slain with impunity by 
 no matter whom.^ 
 
 Frederick does not pretend to issue an all-inclusive 
 code. His constitutions are, however, to be the 
 primary authority upon the subjects with which they 
 deal. When a count or baron is brought to trial, 
 the counts or barons who are called upon to give 
 sentence, are to declare the law according to the sacred 
 constitutions, or, failing them, according to the approved 
 customs of the realm, and, lastly, according to the 
 common law, that is to say, the Lombard and the 
 Eoman Law, according as the quality of the litigants 
 shall demand.^ In later times there appears to have 
 been much doubt as to what the common law of the 
 kingdom of Sicily reaUy was, and historians are at the 
 present day unable to decide what value a Sicilian or 
 Apulian judge at the end of the thirteenth century 
 would have assigned to the Roman and the Lombard law 
 
 ' Const. Regn. Sic, ii. 1 ; Kcker, Forsch., i. 29 ff. ; Cod. Just., ix. 2-6 ; 
 ix. 40 ; Dig., xlvii. 17. 1-4. 
 
 2 Const. Regn. Sic., i. 47 ; Savigny, Oeschichte des Romischen Rechts, ii., 
 p. 203. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 191 
 
 respectiA'ely. It is clear, however, that great legal 
 diversity continued to exist in Sicily in spite of 
 Frederick's legislation, which, as we have seen, hardly 
 dealt with private law at all.^ Yet in two directions 
 his influence was decisive. It moulded procedure and 
 the penal code. The Beneventine Eomanist Eoflfrid, who 
 was one of Frederick's judges, still respects the Lombard 
 penal law. The Sicilian lawyer, Andrea of Isernia, who 
 wrote in the fourteenth century, and who acknowledges 
 that the Lombard law is in some parts of the country 
 actually preferred to the Roman, was able to say, "We 
 make no use of the Lombard laws in criminal cases." ^ 
 It seems then that Frederick had effectively expelled 
 the ancient compositions for crime.^ 
 
 In some respects Frederick's legislation was not 
 clearly in advance of his age. No medieval legislator 
 could have afforded to ignore the deep ravines which 
 divided class from class, the noble from the burgess, the 
 burgess from the peasant, and still less could these 
 distinctions be ignored in a kingdom which was stocked 
 
 1 Savigny, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts, vi., p. 447 ; Lamantia, Storia 
 della legislazione Siciliana ; Capasso, Sulla storia esterna delle Costituzione 
 del regno di Sidlia promulgate da Frederico II., p. 22 ff., and Intr. xxi. ; 
 and the Proemium of the customs of Palermo (ed. Briinneck), "Cumque 
 felicis urbis jam dictae incolae Romanorum lege viventes in quibusdam 
 causis et casibus jure non scripto municipali (quod consuetudinarium 
 dicitur) uti valient, ad instar ex orbis gentibus aliquarum, ut tarn ex eis 
 qiiam ex veteribus legibus Komanorum inter eos vigeret pacis et justitiae 
 plenitudo,nova jura quodammodo de naturae gremio producentes quasdam 
 sibi fecerunt consuetudines . . . quibus consuetudinibus ipsi ac 
 successores eorum postmodum usi et gavisi sunt ex consensu regnantium 
 dominorum." 
 
 ^ Lectura ad Const. Sic, i. 65. 
 
 3 There is scarcely any penal law at all in the Sicilian municipal codes. 
 Palermo and Messina are the exceptions, and Palermo was autonomous in 
 virtue of the privilege of 1233. We have therefore really no statutory 
 evidence as to the operation of Frederick's laws in this respect (Briinneck, 
 p. 355). 
 
192 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part H 
 
 ^vith Norman families, proud of their aristocratic origin. 
 Frederick observes them. The count and the baron 
 are to be tried indeed before the royal judges, who 
 are not counts or barons, but the judgment is to be 
 found by the peers of the accused, unless the judges 
 receive a special commission from the nobOity to con- 
 duct the case themselves. Xo ■s'illeins are allowed to 
 bear witness, even against mere knights, and the value 
 of judicial testimony is gauged by a scale based upon 
 the social hierarchy. A count can be con^dcted by 
 the testimony of two counts, or of four barons, or of 
 eight knights, or of sixteen burgesses. Two barons 
 or four knights or eight burgesses will suffice to convict 
 a baron, except in the case of high treason, where these 
 rules do not apply.^ Again a special penal tariff is 
 arranged for injuries done to noble persons by their 
 inferiors or their equals. Yet, although the constitu- 
 tions of Sicily do not provide for perfect equality before 
 the law, they go as far in that direction as was possible. 
 The nobles preserve certain privileges, but they lose 
 the substance of their power. Criminal jurisdiction 
 has been taken from them. They are debarred from 
 appointing judges.^ ^Vhen they sit in judgment upon 
 their peers they are compelled to take an oath to give 
 judgment according to the e^ddence and their good 
 conscience, and the evidence is presented to them by 
 a professional judge. No count, baron, or knight, 
 or any other who holds barony, castle, capital fief 
 or registered fief, can marry a wife, or can give 
 daughter, sister, niece, or son in marriage vvithout 
 
 1 C<ymt. Regn. Sic, ii., 32. 
 
 2 The counts and barons in the region of Conversano were subsequently 
 given the right to appoint annual judges (Winkelmann, Acta Imperii, 
 voL i., No. 942, p. 716). 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 193 
 
 the king's permission.^ The sons of a deceased 
 count or baron cannot receive the oaths or the reliefs 
 of their men until they have obtained royal license. 
 If a noble strike a noble, he loses his knighthood ; he 
 is prevented from sitting as a judge upon his peers; 
 he is banished from the kingdom for the space of a 
 year. The collecta or general subsidy hits baron and 
 noble, clerk and commoner alike, for there is no leveller 
 of persons like enlightened finance. So, too, the Jews 
 and the Saracens were taken under royal protection. 
 " Hateful though they be, through their divergence 
 from the Christian sect, and destitute of all other help, 
 yet we cannot allow them to be defrauded of the power 
 of our protection." Frederick was intolerant enough 
 against the Patarines, who were numerous in the 
 Lombard cities, and he may cynically have reflected 
 that a profession of Catholic orthodoxy might be use- 
 fully combined with a crusade against his political 
 enemies, but the Jews and Saracens stood in a different 
 position, for the Jews lent him their money, the Saracens 
 their arms, and Frederick, who was naturally indifferent 
 to religion, recognized the substantial value of their 
 friendship. The trouble which the emperor took to 
 dispel the fable of the Jewish custom of infanticide, 
 and the zeal with which he overcame the prejudices of the 
 German princes, is one of the most remarkable passages 
 in his life. Through all the harsh, cynical, and super- 
 stitious elements in Frederick's character, there was a 
 real ardour for enlightenment, a passionate desire for 
 
 1 This provision seems to have been originally due to "William I. ( Ugo 
 Falcando, ed. Siragusa, pp. 64, 78). It was extremely unpopular both in 
 William I.'s time and under Frederick II., who relaxed the rule in favour 
 of the smaller tenants in 1231, and in favour of the smaller tenants in 
 chief and all mesne tenants in 1241, Cf. Winkelmann, Acta Impmii, 
 No. 803, p. 625 ; and No. 850, p. 654 ; No. 858, p. 659. 
 VOL. II. N 
 
194 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 culture and ordered rule, a romantic zeal for the wel- 
 fare of his Sicilian home. 
 
 The constitutional organization of Sicily was even 
 more important than the penal and procedural reform. 
 Frederick's object was first of all to obtain control of the 
 whole administration, and, secondly, to secure that 
 the administration should be efficient and impartial. 
 No prelate, count, baron, or knight was to act as justice 
 in his own lands. No podestats, consuls, or rectors were 
 to be appointed in the towns without his consent. Only 
 three towns were allowed, in accordance with ancient 
 privileges, to preserve independent rights of criminal 
 jurisdiction. Every care was taken to avert official 
 malversation. All the higher offices were remunerated 
 with fixed salaries ; all offices were annual, and every 
 official was bound to render an account of his office at 
 the end of the year, and to wait fifty days after the end 
 of his appointment to answer any charges which might 
 be brought against him. No man could be a justice in 
 any district in which he had house, land, or relations. 
 The judge or notary who forged or tampered with public 
 documents was condemned to death, and no judges were 
 permitted to enter into a contract during their term of 
 office. Any official who could be proved to have used 
 his office to injure others must first restore the sum which 
 he had embezzled, and then pay a penalty equal to four- 
 fold that sum. In 1234 four representatives from every 
 large town, and two representatives from every small 
 town, were ordered to hold a court of inquiry into the 
 conduct of officials twice a year, and the court was to 
 last fourteen days.^ A special court for the verification 
 of official accounts \cuna ratiocinit] was established at 
 Barletta, and afterwards [1247-48] departmental courts 
 
 1 Const. Regn. Sic., i. 41-49, 50-5, 57-62 ; S.B., iv. 460. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 195 
 
 were added for the same purpose at Monopoli, Caiazzo 
 and Melfi.^ The precautions appear to have been partly 
 vain, and the principles upon which they were framed 
 were occasionally violated even by the emperor himself. 
 The complaints of an indifferent poet may possibly be 
 discounted by the hypothesis that he was also an un- 
 successful Htigant,^ but it is likely enough that the wars 
 of Frederick, which necessitated a military, judicial, and 
 financial reorganization of the kingdom in 1240, and a 
 concentration of the highest military and judicial 
 authority in lower Italy, may have led to a dislocation of 
 justice and to a decline in the standard of administrative 
 probity. At any rate, there is evidence of financial 
 malversation and judicial misconduct. But the strict 
 control of the Chancery must have reduced this mis- 
 conduct and malversation to a minimum.* 
 
 This connected body of rational and explicit pre- 
 cautions against administrative and judicial abuses is 
 by no means a unique feature in the Italian legislation 
 of the Middle Ages, although there was nothing ana- 
 logous to it in Germany. Among all the benefits 
 which the survival of Eoman law secured to Italian 
 civilization, none perhaps was greater than the mass of 
 securities against official misconduct which had been 
 accumulated during the days of vigorous Eoman provin- 
 cial administration. The Italian Eepublic of the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, susceptible to every solicitation 
 of jealousy and suspicion, was just the kind of society to 
 
 ^ The Comtitutiones super scholas ratiocinii, 1248 ; "Winkelmann, Acta 
 Imperii inedita, No. 922, p. 700. 
 
 2 Cf. the curious poem printed by Winkelmaim, Friedrich II., vol. i.. 
 Appendix. 
 
 = Cf . the Articles of inquiry into the conduct of G. de Montef uscolo, the 
 Justiciar of Calabria. Winkelmann, Acta Imperii inedita, No. 879, 
 p. 670, and No. 856, p. 658, " Contra solitam impoaitorum et coUectorum 
 nequiciam." 
 
196 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 appreciate this legacy. It revelled in creating checks 
 and limitations upon the power of its officers. The 
 twelfth century municipal statutes are full of them. 
 The consul in general holds office for one year only, 
 receives either a fixed salary or an assignment on certain 
 taxes, is forbidden to accept gifts, to be re-elected 
 within five years, and neither father, brother, or son 
 may succeed him in his office. The outgoing consul 
 must within a stated time give an account of his office 
 and of the moneys which have passed through his hands, 
 and all important aff"airs must be submitted to the com- 
 munity.^ Frederick and his advisers legislate in the 
 same sense not for a city, but for a kingdom, not for a 
 republic, but for a despotism, and nowhere, save possibly 
 in England under Henry II. , had there been such a con- 
 nected system of central control over a whole country 
 since the Barbaric invasions broke up the administrative 
 fabric of Diocletian in Western Europe. 
 
 Frederick's rule in Sicily was the rule of a strong 
 enlightened bureaucracy, tempered occasionally by an 
 assembly of notables. It was unlike anything which any 
 other part of the medieval empire had experienced, or was 
 likely to tolerate. Of the towns in the Regno, Palermo 
 alone retained its autonomy, but it was the official capital 
 and the royal residence, and likely to be specially in- 
 fluenced by the court. Messina, which was more import- 
 ant commercially, and which gave its to'wn law to 
 Gergenti and Lipari, Trepano, and Patri, was allowed no 
 such liberty. The life of the feudal lord must have been 
 scarcely tolerable, for at every point it was controlled by 
 the crown. His arms, accoutrements, and horses were 
 viewed by inspectors three times a year, and the annual 
 
 1 Fertile, Storia del diritto Italiano, vol. i., p. 43-54. The rules, of 
 course, differ in detail from city to city. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 197 
 
 value of his fief in victuals, wine, money, and revenues 
 was estimated at the same time.^ If he deteriorated his 
 fief, he was put upon an allowance like a child, unless he 
 had an heir or relation who could be substituted for 
 him.^ Eoyal license must be obtained to levy a relief, 
 to knight a son or a brother, to marry, to receive the 
 oath of a vassal, to sell or divide or transfer a fief, to 
 receive a foreign resident. The rules of wardship 
 are so strictly interpreted, that as soon as it is notified 
 that a feudatory has died leaving no heir of full 
 age, the Magister Camerarius enters into possession, 
 and the sons of the house must "labour after the 
 court" to get the royal license to be provided with 
 the necessaries of life.^ The country is kept down by 
 royal castles filled with carefully supervised garrisons, 
 each of them supported by special lands and vineyards 
 told ofi" for their maintenance. ■* As the Italian war goes 
 on, the taxation becomes more and more crushino-. In 
 1231 the government acquires the monopoly of salt, silk, 
 iron, and dyeing. The import duties and export duties, 
 the excise, the feudal dues, the farming of offices, the 
 judicial fines, the taxes upon Jews are no longer 
 sufficient. Throughout the whole reign it appears that 
 a land commission is at work, the redintegratores 
 fcudorum, examining titles; resuming the alienated 
 portions of the royal domain ; recalling fugitive villeins 
 and men who have commended themselves to other 
 lords, or who have fled to church lands, which owe no 
 service to the crown ; claiming foreigners as the kino-'s 
 men. No title is safe from disturbance which cannot 
 be shown to have existed a year before the death of 
 
 ' Winkelmann, Acta Imperii, No. 803, p. 625. "^Ih., No. 927, p. 705. 
 
 3 This arrangement was modified in 1247-8. 
 ' Winkelmann, Acta Imperii, No. 764, p. 607. 
 
198 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 King William II., that is to say in 1188.^ When we 
 reflect upon the time over which this '/uo warranto in- 
 quiry extended, upon the mass of difficult litigation, the 
 disturbance of vested interests, and the forced transplan- 
 tation of human beings from one locality to another and 
 from one master to another, to which it must have 
 given rise, when we consider the energy and persistency 
 with which the inquiry was pursued into every detail, 
 we are amazed at the docility of the country which 
 acquiesced in these proceedings. Nor was this aU. 
 The Xorman kings had been in the habit of collecting 
 a general subsidy when they were levying an army 
 for the defence of their kingdom, or upon the occasion 
 of their coronation, or of the knighting of their son, 
 or of the marriage of their daughter. Frederick on 
 his return from crusade first levied one of these aids, 
 which in principle represented the equivalent for the 
 burghers and the peasants of the personal military 
 service which the feudatories were bound to perform. 
 But these aids, levied first esceptionally, soon became 
 annual, and were styled collectae ordinariae." The 
 sums raised were enormous : in 1238, 102,000 gold 
 ounces; in 1242, 60,800 gold ounces; in 1248, 130,000 
 gold ounces.^ The tax was an impdt de repartition, 
 a certain cjuantum being required from each of the 
 
 ' Winkelmann, Acta Imperii, i^o. 920, vol. i., p. 69.5 ; No. Sijfi, p. 627. 
 There is much extremely interesting information about this Domaiaial 
 Commission in the Excerpta J/amlietisia published in the first volume of 
 Winkelmann's Acta Imperii. Cf. No. 777, p. 611 ; No. 781, p. 612 ; No. 
 783, p. 613 ; No. 806, p. 627 ; No. 807, p. 628 ; No. 876, p. 668-9 ; No. 924, 
 p. 701 ; No. 927, p. 704. 
 
 - Letter of Martin IV., 12S4, in Raynaldi Ann. Eccl., iii., p. 563 ; 
 Cadier, Essai sur V administration du royaume de Sidle soiis Cliarles I. 
 et Charles II. dAnjou. 
 
 3 Winkelmann, Acta Imperii, No. 936, p. 712 ; No. 873, p. 665 ; No. 
 811, p. 631. 
 
CHAP. XI] IMPERIAL LEGISLATION IN ITALY 199 
 
 provinces of the kingdom. According to the regu- 
 lations of 1241 all the justices meet at Foggia, and 
 swear to impose the tax. They then summon two 
 or four of the better men from each city or castle, 
 by whose indication all the collectors of subsidies from 
 the time of the coronation are summoned. Of these 
 two are sworn in from each neighbourhood or con- 
 stabulary, and these two point out the richest men in 
 their district. The richest men are then taxed first, 
 and after them the next richest, and so the tax 
 descends. When the subsidy is collected, it is com- 
 pared with the register of past subsidies, and if it should 
 be found that any person has paid less than he should 
 have paid, the deficiency is exacted not only from the 
 defaulter but from the collector himself.^ 
 
 The task of collecting Frederick's subsidies must have 
 been as invidious and as onerous as the task which fell 
 upon the elus of the ancien regime. In one year many 
 of the collectors fled out of the kingdom rather than face 
 their liabilities, and the royal chancery made efibrts 
 to coax them back.^ What an ironical inversion of 
 Frederick's hopes ! He wished to make the Regno a 
 paradise upon earth. He tempted strangers to settle 
 there by offering them exemption from all taxation for 
 ten years.' But circumstances forced him to drain the 
 country of its wealth in order to sustain his war against 
 the Papacy and the Lombard towns, and in his hands the 
 instrument of government which had been forged by the 
 Norman kings became a thing of penetrating tyranny.* 
 
 1 Winkelmann, Acta Imperii, No. 811, vol. 1., p. 631. 
 
 ^Ib., No. 854, vol. i., p. 656. 3 /j^ j^^ 799^ p^ g22. 
 
 « Frederick recognizes the fact in his will, "Item statuimus ut 
 homines regni nostri sint liberi et exempti ab omnibus generalibus 
 collectis, sicut consueverunt esse tempore regis Guglielmi secundi" 
 (R.B., Intr., p. cdxix.). 
 
200 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [PT. Ii, CH. xi 
 
 But he still remains tlie only member of his house who 
 founded durable institutions. When the brief period of 
 French rule was passed, the Sicilian constitution as it 
 had been shaped by Frederick II. emerged in aU its 
 main features. The Arragon kings indeed enlarged the 
 liberties of the towns, which had helped to drive the 
 French from the island and to plant the Spanish 
 dynasty upon the Sicilian throne, but the constitutions 
 of Frederick remained the code of Sicily, and the 
 registers of Charles of Anjou illustrate the continuity 
 of that fiscal and administrative system which was 
 founded by Eoger the Great and so firmly compacted 
 by the wisest and the ablest of the medieval emperors.^ 
 
 ^ Les Archives Angevines de Naples, par Paul Durrieii ; Essai sur 
 V administration du royawme de Sicile sotis Charles I. et Charles II. 
 d Anjou, par Leou Cadier [BihliotKeque des Ecoles Frangaises d' Athines et 
 de Rome, Fasc. xlvi. et lix.] 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE EMPERORS AND THE CITY OF ROME. 
 
 When the emissaries of Otto the Great arrived in the 
 city of Rome to prepare the way for his coming, the 
 Pope prescribed an oath in the following form, which 
 the Saxon was to take as a preliminary condition to 
 his reception within the walls : " To the Pope John, 
 I king Otto promise and swear by the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Spirit, and by this wood of the living 
 cross, and by these relics of the saints that if by the 
 permission of G-od I shall come to Rome, I will exalt 
 the Holy Roman Church and thee its ruler according to 
 my power. And thou shalt never by my will, consent, 
 counsel or exhortation, lose life or limb or the honour 
 which thou now hast and wilt have through me. And in 
 Rome I will hold no plea, and make no ordinance con- 
 cerning all those matters which pertain to thee or thy 
 Romans without thy consent. And whatever part of the 
 land of St. Peter shall come into our power, I will restore 
 to thee. And to whomsoever I shall commit the king- 
 dom of Italy, I will cause him to swear to help thee 
 to defend the land of St. Peter according to his power." 
 The suspicions of the Pope were reasonable enough, and 
 Otto took the oath only to break it. In the famous 
 privilege of 962, in which he confirmed the donations 
 of previous emperors to the Papacy, he also repeated 
 
202 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 a clause, according to which an annual report was to 
 be made to the emperor or his son concerning the 
 administration of justice within the city, and which 
 gave to the Pope the power of referring cases to be 
 decided by special commissioners from the imperial 
 court. ^ The antagonism between the oath and the 
 privilege epitomizes the relations between the emperors 
 and the city of Rome. While the popes were anxious to 
 safeguard their patrimony and their temporal jurisdiction 
 both within and without the city, the emperors would 
 content themselves with no measure of control less than 
 that which had been exercised under the emperor 
 Lothair [824]. Otto I. sternly crushed the family of 
 the Crescentii, who styled themselves patricians and 
 represented the cause of municipal independence. The 
 widow of Otto II., Theophano, went to Rome, subdued 
 the surrounding region, styled herself emperor, sent 
 her agents through the patrimony of St. Peter and held 
 court days within the city itself Her son, Otto III., 
 schooled alike in classical learning and monastic abne- 
 gation, scourges himself secretly in the cave of Subiaeo, 
 whUe nourishing the most exorbitant imperial schemes. 
 This passionate young visionary, half Greek, half Saxon, 
 the plaything of scholars and of monks, meant to make 
 Rome again the capital of the empire. Violating the 
 Teutonic sentiment of equality, he sat apart from his 
 nobles at a table raised upon a dais. He lived in 
 an ancient palace on the Aventine, surrounded him- 
 self with Roman companions, and introduced the cere- 
 monial of the Byzantine court, with its stiff etiquette 
 and its official nomenclature. But his only reward 
 was the bitterest disillusion. The Germans disliked the 
 Greek, who made no secret of his abhorrence of " Saxon 
 
 iWeiland, i., No. 12. 
 
CHAP, xil] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 203 
 
 rusticity," and the stern justice of the emperor outraged 
 the turbulent populace of Rome. In 1001 the emperor 
 was closely besieged for three days in his palace on the 
 Aventine by the citizens of his favourite city. "Are 
 you," said the poor lad, speaking to the crowd below 
 from the top of a tower, "my Eomans? For you I 
 have left my country and my friends. For love of 
 you I have sacrificed my Saxons and all the Germans, 
 my blood. I have adopted you as my sons, I have 
 preferred you to all. For you I have stirred up 
 against me the envy and the hatred of all. And now 
 you have rejected your father, you have destroyed my 
 friends by a cruel death, you have excluded me whom 
 you should^ not exclude, because I will never suffer those 
 to be exiled from my affections whom I embrace with 
 paternal love." The Duke of Bavaria and Hugh, the 
 Marquis of Italy, rescued Otto from his danger. 
 The emperor escaped with a handful of attendants 
 from the city to meet with his death in the following 
 year. " All regions which belong to the Eomans 
 and the Lombards he had faithfully subdued to his 
 dominion save Rome alone, which he ever loved 
 and affected before all other cities." 
 
 Otto's dream of a restoration of the Roman Empire in 
 the antique sense perished with him at Paterno. The 
 German emperors were never able to acquire even the 
 most fleeting authority in that barbarous and turbulent 
 city, whose ancient buildings gave shelter to the bandit 
 nobles of the Campagna, and whose debased but arro- 
 gant populace continued to cherish a tradition of 
 republican liberty. Received with hymns and litanies 
 and processions of senators and priests, the royal guest 
 was generally driven from the city after the ceremony 
 of the coronation was over, by a Roman rising against 
 
204 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 his Grerman troops. There was hardly an imperial 
 coronation which did not finish with some such bloody 
 and humiliating epilogue. An insurrection eight days 
 after his coronation drove Henry II. from the city. A 
 dispute between a Roman and a German concerning an 
 ox-hide evoked a -n-ild scene of carnage which dimmed 
 the splendour of the coronation of Conrad II. 
 
 The disgust of the Roman nobility at the ^dces and 
 incompetence of the Tusculan popes induced them to 
 invite the intervention of Henry III. and to lay at 
 his feet the patriciate, an ofl&ce said to have been first 
 created by the Byzantine exarchs, but which, owing 
 to the use made of it by the family of the Crescentii, 
 was now held specially to confer the right of the 
 election and investiture of the Pope. But the authority 
 which Henry III. was able to exercise in Rome was 
 not more long-lived than the momentary exhaustion 
 of party-spirit. The emperor was crowned in 1046, 
 after deposing three popes, and nominating a German 
 to the papal chair under the title of Clement II. ; 
 but in 1047 Clement died, and the anti-German party, 
 supported by Boniface of Tuscany, then the most power- 
 ful prince in Italy, raised its head anew. Benedict IX., 
 a debauched Tusculan noble, who had been elected 
 Pope at the age of twelve, and had been deposed by the 
 emperor at the Synod of Sutri in 1046, bribed his way 
 back into Rome, and managed to maintain himself in 
 the papal chair for eight months and nine days ; and 
 Henry, who, at the request of the larger part of the 
 Romans, had caused the election of another German, 
 Poppo of Brixen, found some difficulty in negotiating 
 the entry of his candidate into the city. The sub- 
 mission of Boniface to the emperor, and perhaps also 
 the exhaustion of Benedict's purse, paved the way for 
 
CHAP. XII] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 205 
 
 the reception of Damasus II. The Eoman populace 
 seem for a time to have been genuinely weary of papal 
 scandals, and the imperial patrician, who had begun 
 by deposing three popes, nominated no less than four 
 in succession to the Eoman see — Clement II., Damasus 
 II., Leo. IX., and Victor II. Yet this signal achieve- 
 ment weakened rather than fortified the hold of the 
 emperors upon the city. The genius, the zeal and the 
 courage of the son of a Tuscan peasant — Hildebrand of 
 Soana — restored the damaged finances of the holy see, 
 and directed the policy of Leo and of Victor ; and the 
 revived Papacy, guided by this fiery subdeacon, who 
 had made his monkish profession in the strict Cluniac 
 house of St. Mary's on the Aventine, disputed the very 
 foundations upon which the emperors rested their power 
 of ecclesiastical patronage in Rome. 
 
 The immediate successor of Victor II. was Frederick 
 of Lorraine, the brother of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, 
 who had been one of the most formidable antagonists 
 of the emperor in Germany, and who had married 
 Beatrice of Tuscany, the widow of that Count Boniface 
 who had led the opposition to the emperor in Italy. 
 Frederick himself had been persecuted by Henry, and 
 the nobles, clergy and people of Rome who proclaimed 
 him Pope under the title of Stephen IX., on August 2, 
 1057, were at once gratifying their traditional hatred of 
 German domination, and resuming those electoral rights 
 which ten years earlier they had ceded to the emperor.^ 
 
 1 The emperor's consent was afterwards obtained. Ann. Alt., " Eege 
 ignorante postea tamen electionem ejus comprobante." The Pope was 
 consecrated on August 3rd, but it was not until December that Hilde- 
 brand and Anselm of Lucca started for Germany to obtain the consent 
 of the court. Bonitho's statement that Henry III. was persuaded by 
 Hildebrand to lay down the patriciate, and to restore to the Roman 
 clergy and people their ancient privileges, is clearly false. Cf. Martens, 
 Gregor. VII., i., p. 73. 
 
2o6 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 The new Pope would have changed the morals of the 
 Church and the political map of Italy. He convoked 
 the clergy and people of the city in frequent synods, 
 and laid down the rule that no one, from a subdeacon 
 to a bishop, should be allowed to marry. He designed 
 to expel the Germans, to conquer the Normans, to 
 found an Italian kingdom under his brother Godfrey, 
 and to extend the territories of St. Peter. ^ But he 
 died on March 29, 1058, with these mighty schemes 
 all unrealized ; and the Tusculan party, aided by all 
 the antagonists of reform in the city, and scouting 
 the injunction which the deceased Pope had laid upon 
 them to wait till the return of Hildebrand, who was 
 absent in Germany, paraded the city with armed 
 bands, conciliated the mob with liberal doles, and 
 in the dead of night raised a Tusculan noble, John, 
 Bishop of Velletri, to the Papacy under the title of 
 Benedict X. 
 
 Germany was now governed by the empress Agnes 
 during the minority of Henry IV., and Agnes was a 
 friend to the reformers. The cardinal Hildebrand came 
 to Florence as her plenipotentiary ; the services of God- 
 frey and Matilda were enlisted on his side, and a party 
 of the Eoman nobility, who were opposed to the Tus- 
 culans, were induced by Hildebrand to send an embassy 
 to the German court to obtain its consent to the choice 
 of Gebhard of Florence. At a synod of Sienna the 
 Florentine bishop was elected Pope, under the title 
 of Nicolas II. ; but although the empress had favoured 
 his election and had directed Godfrey to escort him 
 
 iLeo Ost., ii. 94-7 [SS., vii., pp. 690-695], "Disponebat ... fratri suo 
 duci Gotfrido apud Tusoiam in colloquium jungi eique ut ferebatur 
 imperialem coronam largiri : demum vero ad Normannos Italia expel- 
 lendos, qui maximo illi odio erant, una cum eo revertL" 
 
CHAP. XII] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 207 
 
 to Rome, the German influence was not powerful enough 
 either to mould or to assist the policy of his party. It 
 was only by dint of hard blows and lavish bribes that 
 Hildebrand had driven the Tusculan from the Lateran, 
 and he realized that the empire was an insufficient 
 shelter against electoral scandals, and that the turbu- 
 lence of Roman factions could only be quelled by a 
 nearer and more available ally. His first act was to 
 pass that famous Vatican decree of 1059, which trans- 
 ferred the election to the Papacy to the college of 
 cardinals, and thus deprived both the nobility of Rome 
 and the Roman emperor of the influence which they had 
 in turn exercised over papal elections.^ His second 
 act was to ally himself with the Normans, who in 
 defiance of the empire had settled in the south of Italy, 
 to invest them with all their conquests, saving only 
 Benevento, as fiefs of the Roman see, together with 
 Sicily, then occupied by the Moors, and afterwards to 
 win his way into Rome with an army of Norman 
 mercenaries at his heels. ^ 
 
 The parts were now reversed. The party of ecclesi- 
 astical reform, which had been given a footing in 
 Rome by Henry III., had turned against the empire. 
 The Papacy, which, thanks to Henry, was no longer the 
 
 iFor the text, cf. Hugo of Flavigny, [SS., viii. 408]. The decree bears 
 every sign of compromise. The consent of the clergy and people of Rome to 
 the election of the college is stipulated for. There is a vague clause safe- 
 guarding the dehitus honor of the emperor, which, however, is significantly 
 omitted in the Pope's letter (1061) publishing the decrees to Christianity 
 at large. 
 
 2 Bon. ii., 642, " Pontifex Apuliam tendens Normaimos vinculo absolu- 
 tionis absolvit tradensque eis per investituram omn em Apuliam et Calabriam 
 et terras b. Petri ab eis olim invasas, excepto Benevento, omnes in 
 deditionem accepit et eos sibi jurare coegit." Leo Ost., iiL 15 [SS., vii. 
 706], mentions the inclusion of Sicily in the grant to Eobert Guiscard, and 
 the tribute of 12 pence for every pair of oxen. The oath of fealty ["Sancte 
 E. Ecclesiae et domino meo Nicolao Papae"] is given in Watterich, i., 234. 
 
2o8 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 appanage of a Tusculan or Eoman family, now found 
 itself obliged to seek the support of foreign troops. On 
 the other hand the city nobility, the counts of Tusculum 
 and Galeria, and Segni, and Ceccano, all who were 
 jealous of the Pope's dominion over the city, all who 
 were opposed to ecclesiastical reform, the very party 
 which had brewed trouble for the Ottos and created 
 the situation which Henry III. came down to amend, 
 now turned round to the imperial side, and on the death 
 of Nicolas XL, in 1061, sent the symbols of the patriciate 
 to the young Henry — the green cloak, the mitre, the 
 ring and the diadem — and invited him to name a Pope 
 in Rome.^ 
 
 Hildebrand had thought it worth while during the 
 lifetime of Xicolas to keep in touch with the German 
 court, and had sent the cardinal Stephen to propitiate 
 the regent ; but the cardinal was refused admittance, 
 Nicolas II. was deposed at a German synod, and 
 Hildebrand cut the last cable which bound him to the 
 imperial party. So in 1061, when Nicolas died, Hilde- 
 brand pulled the strings of the papal election. Ajiselm 
 of Lucca was elected Pope, under the title of Alexander 
 II., in accordance with the provisions of the Vatican 
 decree, while the king's confirmation was not even 
 asked, and Eichard of Capua, hired, says a hostile ^\it- 
 ness, by the bribe of a thousand pounds, after a hard 
 day's fighting with the Eoman citizens, enthroned "the 
 new antichrist " in the Lateran, and did him fealty. 
 
 The pontificate of Alexander II. was a flagrant 
 defiance of imperial rights. The German party could 
 not look with equanimity upon a step which deprived 
 it of all control over the appointment to the greatest 
 
 ^Leo Ost., iii., 19 [SS., vii. 711] ; Benzo, vii, 2 [SS., xi. 672]; Martens 
 i., p. 297. 
 
CHAP. XII] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 209 
 
 spiritual office in the western world, and of the most 
 important political office in the city of Eome. At 
 an assembly of German and Lombard bishops held 
 at Basle, the Eomans crowned the young Herny as 
 Patrician ; the council annulled the Vatican decree and 
 the election of Anselm ; and a Veronese bishop of Parma, 
 Cadalus, was elected Pope under the title of Honorius 
 11.^ The city of Rome was the scene of the most 
 dramatic and violent episodes in the contest between 
 the two rival popes. But in these struggles the empire 
 was little more than a makeweight. Cadalus opened 
 with a great victory over the Hildebrandines in the 
 Neronian field [April 14, 1062], but he was not strong 
 enough to force his way across the bridge of Hadrian, 
 and upon the failure of supplies he was constrained to 
 break up his camp and to retire upon Tusculum, and in 
 the end to accept the terms imposed upon him by Count 
 Godfrey. 
 
 In the autumn of 1062 there was a revolution in 
 Germany ; the government was seized by Archbishop 
 Anno of Cologne, who kidnapped the young Henry, 
 recognized the election of Nicolas II., and declared 
 Alexander II. to be the legally elected Pope. But 
 there was an inexpugnable element in the Roman 
 nobility which Germans and Normans and Tuscans were 
 unable to subdue. The adherents of Cadalus still vic- 
 toriously held the Leonina, and the antipope gained 
 possession of St. Peter's and the castle of St. Angelo. 
 For more than a year the Pope at St. Peter's held his 
 own against the Pope at the Lateran ; the city was given 
 
 ^ There was, as Eichter points out \Annalen, vol. iii., p. 23], an an- 
 tagonism between the Eoman nobihty and the Lombard bishops, who 
 united to promote the election of Cadalus. The Eomans wished to regain 
 their influence over the papal elections, the Lombards to put the matter 
 in the hands of the king. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
2IO THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 over to street fighting, in which the Norman mercenaries 
 of Alexander were sometimes beaten, and it was not 
 until 1064 that the Leonine party agreed to acquiesce 
 in the nominee of Hildebrand. But the acquiescence of 
 the party of Cadalus was but momentary, for Eome was 
 divided between two families whose enmities were too 
 deep to be easily assuaged. Each party was equally 
 ready to invoke aid from outside, but neither party 
 would have conceded to its ally any permanent power 
 in the city of Eome. From this long contest Henry IV. 
 reaped no advantage whatsoever. The majority of the 
 Romans were faithful to Hildebrand, whom in a frenzy 
 of enthusiasm they had proclaimed Pope by the open 
 grave of his predecessor. It was in vain that in 1076 
 Henry appealed to the Roman clergy and people to rise 
 up against " that invader and oppressor of the Church, 
 that plotter against the Roman republic and our 
 realm," and to depose him. When the emperor's 
 letters were read in the Lateran, and Roland his 
 ambassador, turning to the clergy, coolly informed 
 them that they were expected to present themselves 
 before Henry before Whitsuntide, and to receive from 
 his hands a father and a pope, the Bishop of Porto 
 cried out in a loud voice, " Take him," and the 
 prefect, rushing forward sword in hand with the 
 judges, knights and nobles of Rome, would have 
 assuredly slain the envoy there and then but for the 
 personal offices of the Pope.-^ 
 
 Three times did Henry besiege Rome — in 1081, in 
 1082 and 1083 — and on each occasion the resistance 
 was obstinate. At last, in June 1083, his troops forced 
 an entrance into the Leonine city, and from this position 
 
 ^Bern., Ghron., SS. v. 433; Hugo Flav., Chron., SS. viii. 435; Bruno, 
 c. 8 ; Paul Bern., c. 69 ; Lambert, 1076. 
 
CHAP, xii] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 211 
 
 of advantage he was able to induce the Pope and the 
 Eomans to negotiate. 
 
 A treaty was indeed made with the Pope, who pro- 
 mised to summon a council in November to decide on 
 the king's cause, but it was waste paper from the first. 
 The Pope would only summon his own adherents, and 
 Henry, violating his oath, intercepted their journey. 
 But the Eoman populace were at last weary of famine 
 and the hardship of a siege ; they had made in June a 
 secret compact ^ with the king that they would aid him 
 in obtaining his coronation within fifteen days of his 
 return, whether Gregory was alive or dead, whether 
 he consented or declined ; in case of Gregory's flight 
 or death, they had given hostages to Henry as a 
 guarantee of their good faith ; and they now urged 
 the Pope to give him the crown. They were still, 
 however, faithful to their master ; they suggested that 
 a solemn unction and coronation was unnecessary, and 
 that the Pope might merely ofi'er the crown ; but 
 Hildebrand scorned all subterfuges, and at last the 
 Eomans deserted him and invited Henry to return to 
 the city. " On the day of St. Benedict," wrote the 
 emperor after his coronation to Dietrich, Bishop of 
 Verdun, " we entered Eome ; this fact seems a dream 
 to me ; I may say that God has effected for us with 
 ten men what our ancestors could not have accom- 
 plished with ten thousand. Despairing of taking Eome 
 I was ready to return to Germany when Eoman 
 
 Tor the oath, cf. SS. viii. 461, "Tibi dicimus, Eex H., quia nos infra 
 terminum illuni quam tecum ponemus ad xv. dies postquam Eomam 
 veneris, faciemus te coronare papam Gregorium si vivus est vel si forte 
 de Eoma non fugerit. Si autem mortuus fuerit, vel si fugerit et reverti 
 noluerit ad nostrum consilium ... nos papam eligemus cum tuo consilio 
 secundum canones, et ipsum papam studebimus ... ut te coronet et, ut 
 Eomani tibi faciant fidelitatem." 
 
212 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 messengers recalled us to the city, which received us 
 ■nith rejoicings." 
 
 It was a brief triumph. Henry indeed received the 
 coveted symbols of power — the imperial crown and the 
 patriciate. Wibert was consecrated Pope under the 
 title of Clement III. , but Gregory was still in the castle 
 of St. Angelo. His nephew Eusticus held the Caelian 
 and the Palatine; the Corsi were on the Capitol; the 
 Pierleoni on the island of the Tiber. A war of sieges 
 ensued, in which the colonnades of the Septizonium on 
 the Palatine, one of the finest monuments of the city, 
 were destroyed, in which the palaces of the Corsi were 
 burnt on the Capitol, and the Pope beset in the castle 
 of St. Angelo. Again the mighty architectural relics of 
 ancient Rome were too much for the feeble strength of 
 a medieval emperor. Thirty-six thousand Norman 
 lancers were visible in the Campagna, before the garrison 
 of St. Angelo had shown signs of distress, and Henry 
 and Clement hurriedly left the city, leaving in the ruins 
 of the Leonine town a savage valediction.^ 
 
 Twenty-seven years elapsed before another German 
 sovereign set foot in Rome — years of gloom, tumult and 
 disaster — during which half the city was burnt by the 
 Xormans, and popes were alternately exiled and recalled. 
 In 1111 Henry V. appeared before the Leonine walls to 
 demand the imperial crown. He had already made a 
 treaty with Pope Pascal II., according to which the 
 king was to renounce the investiture and the clergy the 
 fiefs of the cro'WTi, and had sworn that he would never 
 connive either at the deposition or death or mutilation 
 
 ^ Vita Oregorii, ap. "Watterich, i. 306, " Ipse vero ad ecclesiam S. Petri 
 cum Guiberto veniens civitatem S. Petri quam Leo IV. edificaverat 
 funditus destruxit. Sicque valefaciens Eomanis una cum Guiberto re- 
 cessit." 
 
CHAP. XII] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 213 
 
 or imprisonment of the Pontiff. While the G-erman 
 army was still waiting outside the walls, envoys from 
 the Eomau people required Henry to confirm the laws 
 of Rome, and it was only after this had been done that 
 the emperor was admitted to St. Peter's. 
 
 The scene in the cathedral on February 12, when 
 the German prelates blazed out in indignation at a pact 
 which would have reduced them to apostolic poverty ; 
 when the Pope called upon the emperor to renounce the 
 right of investiture ; when the king demanded corona- 
 tion, and the Pope refused ; when the German knights, 
 tired of the altercation, drew their swords, surrounded 
 the high altar, and carried off the Pope and his court to 
 prison ; when priests were robbed and slain, and the 
 ornaments of the Church pillaged by the greedy 
 foreigners, is one of the most dramatic in the history 
 of the city. The scene on the morning of the next day 
 was equally typical of the visits of Roman emperors to 
 their Italian capital. The populace of Rome, wild with 
 indignation at the capture of the Pope, stormed into the 
 Leonine city, and fought desperately with their German 
 enemies. But though the battle resulted in the repulse 
 of the Romans, Henry had won but a Cadmeian victory. 
 The imperialist losses were so great that he was forced 
 to leave the Leonina, and two days later, since the 
 Romans were still undaunted and menacing, to march 
 away from the city altogether, carrying with him the 
 captive Pope, sixteen cardinals, and several consuls and 
 citizens. It is significant of the temper of the Roman 
 populace that Henry was unable to bribe or to bully them 
 into submission. The city refused to admit him unless 
 he released the prisoners, and Henry declined to take 
 this step unless the Pope would crown him and formally 
 concede to him the right of investiture. The unfor- 
 
214 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ir 
 
 tunate Pascal, threatened with the death of all his 
 fellow-prisoners, at last consented to these bitter terms. 
 On April 13 Henry entered the Leonine to'mi and 
 received the imperial and the patrician crowns, but the 
 gates of Rome were closed against him, and he never 
 set foot -ndthin the city itself. 
 
 Henry twice revisited the scene of his cowp-d^ctaf 
 and hurried coronation. In 1117 the fickle Roman 
 populace, led by the nobility who had resolved to 
 free the prefecture of the city from papal influence, 
 put Pascal n. to flight, and the emperor was received 
 in triumph by the victorious faction. He married his 
 illegitimate daughter Bertha to Ptolemy of Tusculum, 
 the most powerful of the nobles of the Campagna, 
 whose lands extended from Tusculum to the sea, and 
 made him a tenant-in-chief of the empire. He distri- 
 buted bribes, and confirmed the popular candidate Peter, 
 a nephew of Ptolemy's, in the prefecture, and then 
 he retired. A year later he returned, summoned by the 
 inordinate jealousy of the papal power, which has always 
 been a potent lever in Roman politics. The Frangipani 
 had rushed into the conclave, which had just elected 
 Gelasius H. [January 24, 1118], bound the Pope with 
 chains, and imprisoned him in a tower. But the popu- 
 lace of Rome rose in revolt, and Cencius Frangipani was 
 forced to release his captive, and demand absolution. 
 But though this brutal imitation of the coup-d' etat of 
 1111 had failed, the Frangipani were not at the end of 
 their resources. They pointed out to Henry that here 
 in Rome a Pope had been elected by the College of 
 Cardinals, and that the rights of the Roman patrician 
 had been clearly violated. Henry hastily marched on 
 Rome, and the old Pope as hastily retreated, pursued in 
 his flight down the Tiber by the arrows and curses of the 
 
CHAP, xii] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 215 
 
 Germans. The emperor would have preferred to come 
 to terms with Gelasius, as he had come to terms with 
 Pascal, but the Pope had escaped from his clutches, and 
 would hear of no compromise. There was nothing for it 
 but to elect an antipope. An assembly of nobles was 
 collected in St. Peter's ; the election of Gelasius was 
 quashed, and Burdinus, Archbishop of Braga in Portugal, 
 was proclaimed Pope, led to the Lateran, and on the 
 next day consecrated in St. Peter's as Gregory VIII. It 
 is a commentary upon the stability of the imperial power 
 in Rome that in 1121 this same Burdinus rode through 
 the streets of the city in the triumph of Calixtus II., 
 seated amidst culinary utensils upon a camel with his 
 face to the tail, clad in a rough goat-skin, and assailed 
 with the stones and gibes of the populace, which had 
 greeted him with enthusiasm three years before. 
 
 In truth it mattered not what side the emperor took 
 in the ecclesiastical controversy, Eome was always his 
 secret or declared foe. Lothair was induced to espouse 
 the cause of Innocent II., who had fled from his Roman 
 enemies to France, and who was supported by the whole 
 weight of St. Bernard and of the French Church. But 
 though the king of the Romans conducted the Pope 
 back to the Lateran, and received from his hands the 
 imperial crown, he was never master of more than that 
 fraction of the city which lay between his palace on the 
 Aventine and the Lateran Church. Anacletus II., the 
 representative of a wealthy Jewish family, the Pier- 
 leoni, which had obtained great weight in civic politics, 
 was housed in the inexpugnable fortress of St. Angelo, 
 and acknowledged in Rome, in the Campagna and among 
 the Normans of the south, and soon after the departure 
 of the German troops Innocent was obliged to take 
 flight for Pisa. 
 
2i6 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 The tenacity with which the Eoman emperors main- 
 tained an intermittent simulacrum of power within the 
 walls of Eome is only less remarkable than the opposi- 
 tion which they encountered. Not a right but was 
 vigorously contested and obstinately maintained. The 
 Vatican decree of 1059 had degraded the patriciate, 
 but emperors still received the symbols of the office, 
 and occasionally nominated an antipope in virtue of it. 
 The control of the highest civil office in Eome, the 
 prefecture, was contested between the Pope and the 
 emperor, and according to the opinion of an orthodox 
 writer, the prefect was expected to do homage to the 
 Pope, while he received the sword or the insignia of 
 temporal authority from the emperor. The emperor 
 Frederick I. guardedly abandoned his claims to the 
 praefectura urbis at Anagni and at Venice, but it is 
 probable that in so doing he meant to relinquish not 
 the right to invest the prefect, but the civil control 
 over the papal patrimony which his officers had been 
 exercising. In 1244 a prefect of the city was signing 
 an imperial charter at Acquapendente, and in the 
 same year Frederick II. complained that the Pope 
 had seduced the prefect, " who had always belonged 
 to the empire and received his dignity from the 
 empire, and as to whom there was never a question 
 raised by the Church."^ 
 
 That the emperor was able for so long to keep alive 
 these prerogatives was due less to any active exhibition 
 of power on his part than to the balance of parties 
 and to the prestige of the imperial crown. Xo German 
 garrison was ever lodged for more than a month or 
 so at a time within the city walls. No German Deceleia 
 
 'Gerhoh von Eeicliersberg, Expositio in psalmum Ixiv. ; Migne, Pair. 
 Lat., cxuiii. ; H.B., vi. 166, 219; Picker, Forschungen, ii., pp. 307-8. 
 
CHAP. XII] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 217 
 
 menaced the capital from the Campagna, no permanent 
 and salaried representative of the empire maintained 
 a court or a party among its half-ruined palaces. Yet 
 the names of many of the noble families in Eome 
 during the eleventh and twelfth centuries betray their 
 German origin, and the Sassi, the Astaldi, the Tebaldi, 
 and the Ursini may have been ready to welcome 
 their compatriots. The nobles utilized the emperor 
 as a counterfoil to the Pope, and the faex Romuli 
 enjoyed him as a spectacle. The pride of the 
 citizens was gratified by the reflection that the most 
 exalted temporal office in Christendom could only be 
 acquired from them and within the walls of their city, 
 and that it was their gift also which conferred upon 
 the emperor the right of nominating the Vicar of 
 Christ. 
 
 A revolution in 1143 ofi'ered to the emperors a rare 
 opportunity of converting into a continuous reality the 
 unsubstantial show of power which they intermittently 
 enjoyed in Rome. The burghers rose against the 
 nobility, overthrew them, and established a senate in 
 the capital. A Roman republic was formed which aimed 
 at finally shaking off the temporal dominion of the 
 Pope, and the leaders of the new commune appealed 
 repeatedly to Conrad III. of Germany for help. At 
 last in 1149, having received no answer to their previous 
 communications, the senate addressed to the emperor a 
 most memorable letter. They represented that they 
 had defeated many adversaries of the empire, and had 
 laid a solid foundation for the imperial rule. The 
 fortresses of the nobility, who, supported by Sicily 
 and Pope Eugenius III, had defied the emperor, were 
 now destroyed, but the faithful senate was harried by 
 the Pope, the Frangipani and other nobles. They 
 
2i8 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 entreated the emperor to hurry to their assistance. The 
 city was at his command, and he would be able to 
 dwell in Eome, the capital of the world, and to rule 
 from thence over Italy and the German empire more 
 absolutely than almost any of his predecessors. Conrad 
 turned a deaf ear to these solicitations, which would 
 have sounded so sweetly to the heart of Otto III. The 
 emperors definitely rejected the professed alliance of 
 the Eoman republic, and thereby helped to confirm 
 the temporal dominion of the Pope. It is perhaps idle 
 to speculate upon the influence which an alliance 
 between the emperor and the Eoman republic might have 
 exerted upon Italian, and indeed upon European history. 
 Would the emperors have been permitted to inhabit a 
 palace and to form a court in Eome ? AYoukl they 
 have received and continued to receive the imperial 
 crown from the populace of Eome without the inter- 
 mediation of the Pope ? Would the PajDacy have been 
 banished to Yiterbo or Anagni ? Would the temporal 
 power have been annihilated, based though it was upon 
 a series of charters runnina; back into the darkness of 
 the Lombard age, and would the greatest of obstacles to 
 the political unification of Italy have been thus early 
 removed ? From our own standpoint it seems almost 
 incredible that Conrad and Frederick, who had both 
 so great a stake in Italy, should have rejected so 
 valuable an ally against the Papacy. But we must 
 remember that no question of medieval politics was 
 ever presented in a naked political form. Eeligion, 
 symbolism, mystic tradition clouded and environed 
 every step which was not made at the direct prompt- 
 ing of passion. 
 
 The Eoman republic was founded in opposition to the 
 Papacy and to the temporal power, and Arnold of 
 
CHAP. XII] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 219 
 
 Brescia, its austere and eloquent tribune, connected its 
 Leing with a creed subversive of ecclesiastical wealth. 
 But the essence of the idea of the Medieval Empire 
 was the parity and alliance of the civil and ecclesias- 
 tical heads of the Christian world, while the essential 
 fact in the constitution of the German monarchy was 
 the temporal power enjoyed by the prelates. No 
 medieval emperor could espouse the cause of apostolic 
 poverty without loosening the foundations of his power, 
 and running counter to the orthodox ecclesiastical 
 sentiment of his times. To enter into a quarrel with 
 the Papacy upon the lines suggested by the Roman 
 Senate would have been to open an endless chapter 
 of discord, and to seal up for ever the mystic page of 
 the Medieval Empire. Conrad III. was in the hands 
 of pious clerks, and paid no attention to the Roman 
 appeal. Frederick I., in 1155, received the envoys 
 of the Roman Senate and people upon the Monte 
 Mario, only to insult them with a laudation of the 
 German race. " Will you know," for so goes the 
 speech put into his mouth by Otto of Freisiug,^ "where 
 the ancient glory of your Rome, the gravity of your 
 senate, the tactics of your camp, the virtue and dis- 
 cipline of knighthood, the stainless and invincible 
 courage in the conflict have gone ? Look at our state. 
 All these things are with us Germans. . . . "With 
 us are your consuls, with us your senate, with us 
 your soldiery." The Roman envoys ajjpear to have 
 demanded that the emperor, according to custom, 
 should confirm the laws of the republic and distribute 
 the expected largesses to the Roman mob ; but 
 Frederick's proud rejoinder, marked l)y the frank 
 
 ^ The speech attributed to the emperor by the auoiiymovis writer of 
 Bergamo is less insulting (Oesta di Federigo I., ed. Monaei, 1. 630-641). 
 
220 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 brutality of the Teuton, was rapidly avenged.^ On 
 June 18, 1155, tlie young emperor was crowned 
 among the acclamations of his troops in the Cathedral 
 of St. Peter, while the bridge by the Castle of St. 
 Angelo was carefully guarded to prevent an irruption 
 of the Eomans. But while the ceremony was taking 
 place, the senators and people of Rome met upon the 
 Capitol. When they heard that the emperor had 
 received the crown without their consent, they poured 
 across the Tiber, through the Leonine city, to wreak 
 their vengeance on the Pope and the Germans.^ The 
 German troops, overcome with the heat and labour 
 of the day, were taking a meal in their camp outside 
 the walls of the city when suddenly the sound of a 
 great tumult struck upon their ears. They snatched 
 up their arms and ran to meet the insurgents. The 
 battle lasted from four in the afternoon to nightfall, 
 and "You might see," says the chronicler, "the Ger- 
 mans slaying the fugitives as if they were saying, 
 ' Receive now, Rome, Teuton steel for Arab gold. 
 This is the money which your prince offers for your 
 crown. Thus do the Franks buy your empire.' " ^ 
 The Romans lost heavily in the battle, and nearly a 
 thousand were said to have been slain or drowned, 
 but the emperor had lost heavily too ; he could obtain 
 
 ^ Qeita di Federigo I., ed. Mouaei, 1. 618 flf : 
 
 " Sed petit ut veterem serves dux indite nioreni 
 Scilicet ut jures mox intratiirus in urbem 
 Te servnturum populi decus, urbis lionorem, 
 Jura senatorum ; nam sic vetus exigit ordo. 
 Munera praeterea Romane debita plebi 
 Quae solet adveniens hue primum rex dare noster 
 Postulat ut tribuas." 
 ^ Fi-id. imp., ep. 3, "De ponte Tyberiiio prosiluerunt et in monasterio 
 S* Petri duobus servis nostris oecisis et cardinalibus spoliatis papam 
 capere intendebant." 
 
 3 Otto Fris., Geita Frid., ii., c. 32. 
 
CHAP. XII] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 221 
 
 no provisions from the city, and famine and heat 
 compelled him to withdraw as if he had been the 
 conquered party/ Yet the republic of Eome could 
 not afford to dispense with the emperor. When the 
 quarrel between Frederick and Hadrian IV. became 
 acute, they sent [1159] envoys to the emperor ; and 
 Frederick, who had been required by the Pope to 
 surrender all authority within the states of the Church, 
 perceived the identity of interest between the republic 
 and himself. He declared himself prepared to recog- 
 nize the senate, but stipulated that a former prefect 
 should be recalled, and sent an embassy to Eome to 
 arrange a settlement with the republic and the Pope. 
 It is probable that a difference upon points of etiquette 
 would have prevented the German ambassadors from 
 coming to terms with the senate had not the death 
 of Hadrian and the double election to the Papacy 
 opened a new chapter. In the schism which ensued 
 the senate and people of Rotne were, in the main, 
 favourable to the imperial candidate, Victor IV., but 
 upon Victor's death in 1164 their sympathies were 
 transferred to the other side. Alexander III. was 
 received into the city, and the Germans found it neces- 
 sary to avenge the levity and the insult. The thrilling- 
 vicissitudes of the summer of 1167 seem to epitomize 
 the whole story of the relations of the empire and the 
 city of Eome. The Eomans, attacking in force the 
 hated city of Tusculum, are decimated by the cavalry 
 of two German archbishops ptay 29, 1167]. Two 
 months later Frecjerick appears before Eome, and forces 
 his way into the Leonina, to find the Church of St. 
 
 ^ The statement of Otto Morena, who says that the loss was heavy on 
 both sides, is clearly to be preferred to that of Otto of Freising, who 
 says that the Eomans only lost one man. 
 
222 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 Peter's fortified and garrisoned by the papal troops. 
 For eight days the garrison holds out against the 
 German engines ; by the order of the emperor, the 
 adjoining Church of St. [Maria del Lavoriero was fired, 
 and the flames spread to the Vatican. Then on 
 July 29tli, to save the building from destruction, the 
 garrison capitulated, and on the following day the 
 emperor installed his Pope. But the master of the 
 Leonina was again excluded from the city, and 
 Frederick was forced to negotiate with Alexander and 
 the senate. Sicilian galleys brought gold to the Pope, 
 and he scattered it among the Fraugipani and his 
 other adherents, but all in vain. Frederick proposed 
 to the patricians that both the contending Popes 
 should abdicate ; he promised to interfere no further 
 in papal elections, and to restore his spoils and his 
 prisoners to the Roman people ; and the people of 
 Eome believed him, and clamoured for Alexander's 
 resignation. There was now no honourable course 
 open to the Pope except to flee from Rome. Then 
 the senate and people swore fealty to the emperor, 
 promising to protect the rights of the empire both 
 within and without the city, and the emperor recog- 
 nized the senate as a body dependent on himself^ 
 For a moment the republic seemed to be within the 
 palm of the emperor's hand. He caused a new senate 
 to be elected, he nominated a prefect, he took four 
 hundred hostages. Emperor and patrician, lord of a 
 vassal republic, master of a Pope, Frederick stood at 
 the zenith of his power. But the rain fell heavily on 
 August 2, and a hot sun followed. The demon of 
 malaria swooped down upon the German army and 
 
 ^"Ut senatus per eum ordinetur et ei subjectus fiat," Ann. Col. (3S. 
 xvii., p. 781). 
 
CHAP, xii] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 223 
 
 destroyed it, and the emperor re-crossed the Po, with 
 a weary handful of followers and no baggage, leaving 
 the flower of German chivalry withering in that vin- 
 dictive clime. 
 
 Frederick I. never set eyes again upon the scene of 
 his sacrilegious triumph and sudden humiliation. The 
 whole Christian world condemned the desecration of St. 
 Peter's, and the revolt of the Lombard league was the 
 natural sequel to the destruction of the German army. 
 For many years to come Frederick was occupied in the 
 north, and to efface the defeat of Legnano in 1176 the 
 emperor was obliged momentarily to concede to the 
 Pope his rights over the Eoman prefecture. " Saving- 
 all the rights of the empire," all possessions of the pre- 
 fecture or any other thing which had been taken from 
 the Roman Church are now at the Peace of A^enice in 
 1177 restored to it.^ But though Frederick, to detach the 
 Pope from the cities, was willing to gi"S'e renewed sanc- 
 tion to the papal patrimony and to the papal control 
 over Rome, he carefully guarded his concessions. The 
 Italian lawyers were teaching the doctrine that res- 
 puhlica meant the republic of the city of Rome, and 
 that the origin and essence of the empire lay in its con- 
 nection with the city.- Frederick had long ago learnt 
 their lesson. "I am called the Roman emperor by 
 
 1 Weiland, i., Nos. 249, 250, "■' Pax Anagnina. Possessionem quoque pre- 
 fecturae urbis dominus imperator libere et plenarie resiituet Domino 
 Papae Alexandre et Romanae ecclesiae. Si autem post optentam plenam 
 restitutionem eius dominus imperator aliquid j uris in ea voluerit requirere 
 a domino Papae et ab ecclesia Romana, cum hoc postulaverit, paratus erit 
 dominus Papa et ecclesia Romana justitiam ei exhibere." Weiland, vol. 
 i., No. 259, sect. 3, "Pa.r Teneta. Omuem vero possessionem et tenementum 
 sive prefecture sive alterius rei, quam Romana ecclesia habuit et ipse 
 abstulit, per se vel per alios, bona fide restituet ei salvo omni jure 
 imperii." 
 
 2 Gierke, Genosseiischaftrecht, vol. iii., pp. 199-200. 
 
224 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 divine ordinance, yet it is but a shadow of domination 
 and an empty name, if our power over the city of Eome 
 be shaken from our hands." ^ It is probable that the 
 emperor still maintained a party in the city, and that 
 despite the concessions of Anagni and of Venice, he was 
 ready to revive his rights on the first opportunity. But 
 the Papacy, to which he had momentarily capitulated, 
 had scarcely more control over the republic than had 
 the empire. The senate steadily developed in strength, 
 and in 1188 extorted a formal recognition of its con- 
 stitution from Lucius III. Henry VI. was only able 
 to obtain his coronation at the price of perfidiously 
 assisting the Romans to destroy Tuseulum. Otto IV., 
 like so many of his predecessors, was crowned in the 
 Leonina, but six thousand men-at-arms could not win 
 him access to the city or avert the humiliation of a 
 street fight. 
 
 Frederick II. was more fortunate, for his coronation 
 was marked by a rare tranquillity. But his power over 
 the city was destined to be no greater than that of any 
 of his predecessors. AVhen the quarrel broke out with 
 Gregory IX. he summoned the most powerful citizens 
 of Eome to his court and the most noble members of 
 the family of the Frangipani. He then, in 1228, made 
 a treaty wdth the Frangipani, according to the terms of 
 which they were to become vassals of the empire, and 
 to assist the emperor in all causes. An inventory was 
 taken of the houses and fields, vineyards and slaves, 
 which were owned by the family within the city, and 
 Frederick bought the real estate at the estimated price, 
 that he might infeoff it to the Frangipani.^ But the 
 alliance, though occasionally useful, was essentially 
 
 iWeiland, i.. No. 179. 
 
 ^Chron. Ursp. SS. xxiii., p. 382 ; H.B., iii., p. 63. 
 
CHAP. XII] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 225 
 
 hollow, for Frederick was not prepared to endorse the 
 programme of the republican party, and he was always 
 anxious to recover the favour of the Church. The 
 republic, led by a series of vigorous senators, had now 
 entered into a desperate struggle with the Papacy, 
 which came to a head in 1234. The citizens protested 
 that the Pope was debarred from excommunicating the 
 city or placing it under an interdict ; the senate aimed 
 at recovering the ancient Roman duchy and at annexing 
 the patrimony of the Pope, which included the towns 
 of Montalto and Viterbo ; while the podestats and 
 senators of the city exacted an annual tribute from 
 the Church. The whole political position of the Papacy 
 in the centre of Italy was gravely menaced. Gregory 
 IX. fled to Perugia, and the Pope and the city appealed 
 alike to Frederick for help. The emperor was no friend 
 of city republics, and at that moment he was anxious 
 to demonstrate his loyalty to the Church. He sent an 
 army to Viterbo, which destroyed the villages, and cut 
 down the vines of the Roman citizens, and inflicted a 
 crushing defeat on a large and disordered force of 
 Romans which marched out to retaliate on the town.^ 
 The next year Frederick was present in person, and 
 there can be no question that it was due to his 
 support that Gregory was able to return to the city. 
 Although he was afterwards accused of having been 
 lukewarm and treacherous, of having trifled away time 
 in hunting and hawking, which should have been 
 employed in closely pressing the siege of a Roman 
 castle, he answered that he had spent more than a 
 hundred thousand crowns in the papal service, and 
 
 ^Matthew Paris estimates the loss on the imperial side at 30,000 
 armati, and says that the Eoman loss was heavier still. A gross exagger- 
 ation. The computations of a Ghibelline writer are more modest. 
 VOL. II. P 
 
226 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ll 
 
 that the Pope had made peace with the Romans and 
 left him in the lurch. ^ 
 
 As the quarrel with the Pope deepened, Frederick 
 made efforts to regain the favour of the city. " Miles 
 Eoma, Miles Imperator," this was the Ghibelline war-cry 
 at Cortenuova in 1237. " We cannot," he wTites to the 
 city of Rome when sending them the carrochio taken 
 from the Milanese, " extol the glory of the empire with- 
 out, at the same time, extolling the honour of the city." 
 In 1240 he asks the Romans to send their pro-consuls 
 to him, that he may appoint them to public offices at 
 the imperial court, that in the antique manner he may 
 entrust to them the administration of regions and king- 
 doms and provinces. Idle compliments ! The emperor 
 might borrow from Roman merchants, and subsidize the 
 Frangipani, but he could never win the confidence of the 
 republic. The Ghibelline senator was never a match for 
 the Guelph senator, or the GhibelHne party for the party 
 of the Pope.^ AVTien matters looked dangerous, the 
 Pope could appeal to the superstition of the masses ; and 
 the most fickle mob in Europe, inflamed by the sight of 
 an ecclesiastical procession, would take the cross to 
 defend the relics of St. Peter against the attacks of 
 an infidel emperor.^ In four successive years Frederick 
 made a vain attempt to enter Rome. He ravaged the 
 Campagna in the month of August, and pestilence 
 carried off Gregory IX. [21st August, 1241]. His 
 Saracens destroyed the beautiful town of Albano with 
 
 1 Richard of S. Germano, 1234-5 ; Matthew Paris, 1234-5 ; E.B., v., 
 327-340, 254, 297-9 ; vi. 287. 
 
 ^ Matthew Paris, 1237, " Eodemque anno procurante domino im- 
 peratore Fretherico creatus est alter senatus Romae." 
 
 ^ Cf. Matthew Paris, vol. iii., 630-8, for the advance of 1239 ; Annales 
 Placentini GhibelUni [a most vivid account] for 1240 ; and H.B., vi. 143, 
 for the siege of 1242. 
 
CHAP, xil] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 227 
 
 its numerous churches, and pillaged the property of 
 the cardinals. The city within was rent with internal 
 discord.-' The cardinal, John of Colonna, who had 
 deserted to the emperor, fortified the mausoleum of 
 Augustus. The papal senator Matthew Orsini besieged 
 it and took it. Still Frederick was unable to effect an 
 entrance. Eome leagued itself with Perugia and Narni 
 and the Guelphic towns of Tuscany [1242]. " In truth," 
 said Frederick, writing to Louis IX. of France, " this 
 people has a hard neck, and bears hatred to us for 
 that it has experienced the success of our star. Of 
 old it has shown no reverence to our empire, to which 
 it has transferred all its rights. And it has not feared 
 to attack and to devastate our lieges."^ Pride and 
 chagrin mingle in the apology. A hollow peace in 
 1246 secured no further advantages to the emperor, 
 and he died in 1250, exactly thirty years after he was 
 last permitted to enter Eome. 
 
 He had neither strengthened the republic against the 
 Pope nor the Pope against the republic, for in truth his 
 own claims were incompatible with the success of either 
 party. For him a Eoman duchy would have been as 
 distasteful as a papal state. And so he was a half- 
 hearted ally, mingling war and diplomacy, compliments 
 and threats, now throwing his weight on the one side, 
 now upon the other. His military force was great, but 
 even forty-five thousand men-at-arms could not bring 
 him into Eome in 1243.* He had the opulence of the 
 Sicilian kingdom at command, but for all that his party 
 
 ^ Cf. the curious letter written by a French or English clerk from 
 Eome, between 1245 and 1250 \II.B., v. 1077 ; Hofler, Albert von Behaim's 
 Concepthueh, No. 47 ; Gregorovius, vi. 247], " Eome secure qualiter eritis, 
 cum pro diversis adversariis omnibus civibus in diversa diversis sit ibi 
 conflictus continuus inter cives et divisio inter fratres." 
 
 '' H.B., vi. 95. 3 Matthew Paris, iiL 266-7. 
 
228 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 in the city was out-numbered, out-bribed, and over- 
 matclied. In 1246 Innocent IV. won over the Frangi- 
 pani by recognizing their claims to the principality of 
 Tarentum, which had been granted by Constance of 
 Sicily to Otto Frangipani, and which had subsequently 
 been transferred by Frederick to his bastard son Man- 
 fred. Against the emperor were arrayed the forces of 
 republicanism and of religion, and the memory of the 
 broad river of blood which flowed between Germany 
 and Eome. The men whose fathers had died at Monte 
 Porzio, the men who had seen the rout of Viterbo, and 
 the Saracen lances scour the Campagna, were ready to 
 resist him to the death. The time was not far off 
 when they were ready to elect a French prince as their 
 senator [1263-78]. 
 
 When Goethe first came to Eome all the dreams 
 of his youth sprang at once into living realities. The 
 pictures and drawings and engravings which had hung 
 on the walls of the old rooms in Frankfort were repro- 
 duced in all their actual shapeliness, and glittered with 
 a touching and romantic beauty in the mellow Novem- 
 ber sunshine. Wherever he went he found an old 
 acquaintance in a new world. To the German of the 
 Middle Ages the eternal city was not without its 
 everlasting and mysterious attractions, but its subtle 
 and manifold appeals to the historic memory and to 
 the artistic consciousness were made to empty minds 
 and listless eyes. The rude soldiery of the medieval 
 emperors eared nothing for the columns of the Forum 
 or the dome of the Pantheon, and the imperial visits 
 to the capital were not productive of a single piece of 
 literature descriptive of the artistic and classical monu- 
 ments of Eome. The best-educated man who followed 
 a medieval emperor on his coronation journey, whUe 
 
CHAP, xii] EMPERORS AND CITY OF ROME 229 
 
 describing the descent of Barbarossa's army from the 
 Monte Mario to the Leonine city, has not a sentence 
 to spare for the magical panorama of castle and column 
 which was spread out before his eyes. The true son 
 of a feudal age, in spite of all his hard-won learning 
 in Paris, Otto of Freising, remembers only to depict 
 the military display of the Germans. " You might 
 see the soldiery shining in the splendour of their arms, 
 terrible as an army with banners. The sun shone 
 upon their shields of gold, and the mountains shone 
 therewith."^ In this spirit army after army of Ger- 
 man warriors marched along the Flaminian way, with 
 their vizors down, in search of the symbol of universal 
 empire, facing malaria and the chances of war in this 
 fickle and enchanted city of abounding perils and un- 
 fathomed treasures, and inexhaustible and unsuspected 
 fountains of knowledge and of joy. 
 
 1 Otto Fris., Oesta Frid., ii. 32. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IMPERIAL ADMINISTEATION IN ITALY. 
 
 There is a clause in an imperial ordinance issued from 
 Pavia in 876, which runs as follows : " Let the bishops 
 discharge in their bishoprics the power and authority of 
 our commission." ^ In the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
 when the emperors paid but flying visits to Italy, the 
 Italian bishops were the mainstays of German influence 
 south of the Alps. From 950 to 1060, a period of 
 imperfect records, we can prove the presence of forty- 
 seven German bishops in Italian sees, and the number 
 should probably be more than doubled.^ The chapter of 
 Goslar, which was only founded under Henry III., 
 supplied two archbishops to Ravenna and bishops to 
 Verona, Padua, Vercelli, and Terni before 1077.^ The 
 Patriarch of Aglei was almost always a German ; the 
 Archbishops of Ravenna, who had obtained partly by 
 usurpation and partly by papal grant the supremacy of 
 the exarchate, were generally Germans, and held their 
 temporal possessions as imperial fiefs. In Istria, in the 
 Veronese March, in Lombardy, and perhaps also in 
 the Romagna and in Ancona many sees were in the 
 
 1 M.G., Leg. Sect., ii., torn ii., p. 103. 
 
 2 Ticker, Forsch., ii., p. 264. 
 
 ^"Monaolii Hamerslebiensis narratio de Basilica Goslariensi eiuaque 
 praepositis" (Leibnitz, Script. Rer. Bmnsw., ii., pp. 506-7). 
 
CHAP, xm] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 231 
 
 imperial gift. " It was an ancient condition of the 
 Italian kingdom, which perseveres to this day," writes 
 Arnulf of Milan in 1067, "that on the death of a 
 bishop of the Church the Italian king should provide 
 successors upon the invitation of the clergy and the 
 people." ^ 
 
 These German bishops in the tenth and eleventh 
 centuries wielded political and judicial power within the 
 north Italian cities. They were not overshadowed by 
 a powerful aristocracy, or compelled to submit to the 
 hegemony of an aristocratic advocate.^ They strength- 
 ened themselves by marriage, and founded families, 
 and occasionally received special commissions from the 
 emperor, which widened their judicial prerogatives. The 
 Bishop of Parma — so run the charters of 962, 989, \ 
 and 1004 — shall have "the power of deliberating and | 
 deciding and distraining, as if our count of the palace ; 
 was present. The inhabitants of Parma may not seek 
 any court save the court of the bishop for the time being. 
 But let the bishop have license, as the count of our 
 palace, to distrain, and to define, and to deliberate over 
 all things and families ; and if it should happen that 
 judgment cannot be lawfully given over the aforesaid 
 things and families without battle, we grant to the 
 commissioner or delegate \misso sive vicedomino] of 
 
 ^SS., viii., p. 23. For an enumeration of Italian bishops who were 
 also princes of the empire, cf. Ficker, Vom Reichsfurstenstande, pp. 308-20. 
 
 ^ Whereas the advocate of the German see was a powerful noble, who 
 usually robbed the see which he was invited to protect, the advocate 
 of the Italian see was generally a lawyer occupying a very subordinate 
 position. Further, while the German advocate was a judge, the Italian 
 advocate generally represented the bishop as a party. The vicedominus 
 appears to have been the judicial delegate of the bishop. It is only 
 exceptionally [e.g. in Eavenna and Trent] that the Italian bishops 
 enfeoff whole counties to counts — a procedure frequent in Germany. 
 The title comes sometimes merely means an official employed by the 
 bishop. Ficker, Forseh., vol. i., p. 33. 
 
232 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 the bishop that he be our commissioner and have the 
 power of deliberating and defining and judging as our 
 count of the palace." Similar privileges were accorded 
 to Asti in 969, to Lodi and Lucca in 980, to Novara 
 in 1014, to Reggio in 1027, to Modena in 1038. It 
 was to such grants that the bishops owed their 
 possessions of certain important judicial prerogatives — 
 the power to decide cases by battle, to appoint tutors 
 or guardians, to deal with contracts made by minors. 
 The bishops were not the only persons to receive 
 commissions from the emperor. Occasionally, but the 
 occasion is rare, a count or a duke figures as a missus. 
 Sometimes a private individual is made an imperial 
 commissioner for his own estates, and there must have 
 been quite a handful of Italian families transmitting 
 these plenary powers of jurisdiction from father to son. 
 There were also some permanent judicial commissioners. 
 In 960 two Milanese citizens, Adelgisus and Azzo, are 
 given jurisdiction in the county of Milan, and in Milan 
 and Pavia, two cities in which the prelates do not seem 
 to have acquired these exceptional powers of jurisdiction, 
 we find not infrequent traces of such special judicial 
 commissions. But in the eleventh century almost all 
 these instances came from Lombardy. We have ab- 
 solutely no trace of such commissions in Spoleto, or 
 Verona or Eomagna, and even in the twelfth century, 
 when they are more frequent [in nine Milanese docu- 
 ments, from 1117 to 1156, fifteen difierent missi are 
 mentioned], they occur nowhere outside Lombardy 
 except at Lucca. There appears, however, to have been 
 a permanent imperial commissioner at Rome ; there 
 may have been such another at Ravenna. Besides this, 
 commissioners would occasionally be sent on special 
 errands, and it was usual for the sovereign, when he had 
 
CHAP. XIII] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 233 
 
 resolved upon an Italian journey, to despatch legates 
 before him to collect revenue, to negotiate for provisions, 
 and to make all the necessary arrangements for the 
 visit. ^ It was but a slight fabric, this Italian adminis- 
 tration of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The 
 separate Italian chancery, which was established in 962, 
 and which was generally conferred upon some Italian 
 prelate, went in 1031 to Archbishop Pilgrim of Cologne, 
 and from that time onward it continued to be the 
 appanage of the Ehenish archbishopric. In 1066, when 
 there was a question of a legation to Italy, the judgment 
 of the court pointed to Archbishop Anno of Cologne as 
 " the archchancellor and the person through whom 
 above all others the business of Italy ought to be 
 administered." The dignity of Archchancellor of Italy, 
 which had no doubt been originally claimed by the See 
 of Cologne as a counterpoise to the Archchancellorship 
 of Germany, which belonged to the See of Mainz, was a 
 title and nothing more. There was little for an Italian 
 archchancellor to do unless the emperor happened to be 
 in Italy; the functions of the Archbishop of Cologne 
 were generally exercised by deputy, and in the latter half 
 of Barbarossa's reign the connection between the arch- 
 chancellor and the Italian chancery was almost entirely 
 broken.^ Few German prelates were less qualified to 
 attend to Italian business than this distant potentate 
 of the lower Rhine, surrounded by a ring of hostile 
 nobles, and absorbed in a territorial and commercial 
 policy which steadily drew them towards Westphalia 
 and the German Ocean. 
 
 1 Otto Fris., Oesta Frid., i., c. 12 ; Luitpr., Hist. Ott., c. 2. 
 
 ^ Seeliger, Erzhanzler und Reichskamleien, p. 42. The Archbishop of 
 Treves at the end of the thirteenth century claimed to be Archchancellor 
 of the kingdom of Aries (ib., p. 46). 
 
234 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 The arch chancellor was but a nominis umbra ; the 
 Gregorian movement shook the imperial control over 
 the bishops ; the communal movement destroyed their 
 political power. The special commissions were in 
 reality from the first so many alienations of imperial 
 prerogative. The bishops who become missi are not 
 thereby converted into imperial officials. They are 
 made richer and more powerful. The grant of the 
 imperial commission to lay citizens merely hastens on 
 the development of independent municipal jurisdiction. 
 When a citizen of Lomello may, in virtue of this com- 
 mission, send litigants to the battle, appoint tutors and 
 guardians, and exercise all forms of plenary jurisdiction, 
 what becomes of the Palsgrave of Lomello ? The grant 
 is equivalent to the liberation of the town from a neigh- 
 bouring lord. When a citizen of Milan gets this com- 
 mission, then the jurisdiction of the ^largrave of Este 
 over that city is doomed. One set of commissions 
 strengthens the bishop, another set strengthens the 
 town. The only good which the emperor derives from 
 his munificence is that his charters keep alive the con- 
 ception of a Eoman imj^enum and the memory of certain 
 imperial prerogatives which might otherwise perish. 
 When we consider the elaborate preparations which 
 were made for the government of Italy in the ninth 
 century: how the country was divided into administra- 
 tive districts ; how the missi were to control ofiicials, 
 dismiss incompetent notaries, keep up the royal palaces, 
 see to it that benefices were not deteriorated, protect 
 widows and waifs, maintain highways, bridges, weights, 
 measures, the standard of the mint, not to speak of 
 numerous other duties military and official ; when we 
 reflect that during the whole period of the eleventh 
 century there is not a single instruction issued to an 
 
CHAP. XIII] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 235 
 
 imperial commissioner in Italy ; that Henry III. , who 
 controlled the Papacy more completely than any of his 
 predecessors or successors, spent only sixty-four weeks 
 in Italy out of the seventeen years of his reign, that 
 even during this period he was troubled by rebellious 
 castles in the Campagna and successfully resisted by 
 Benevento, we have some measure of the decline of 
 German administration south of the Alps.^ 
 
 In the century which elapses from the accession of 
 Henry IV. to the accession of Frederick Barbarossa, 
 the political situation in Italy was profoundly changed. 
 A number of free and thriving republics had grasped 
 political power and autonomy, and everywhere except in 
 the sub-Alpine regions the bishops of Northern Italy had 
 capitulated before the might of the communes. In the 
 centre of Italy a great estate, the heritage of the 
 Countess Matilda, comprising the territories of Mantua 
 and Gonzaga, Correggio and Carpi, with the mountainous 
 parts of the counties of Eeggio and Modena, and various 
 scattered castles and properties in Lombardy, Romagna 
 and Tuscany, came into imperial hands in 1113. 
 From Eome a revived and active Papacy, freed from 
 the control of the emperor by the Vatican decree of 
 1059, was in a position to combine and to direct all the 
 forces which were hostile to the imperial supremacy, 
 while in the toe of Italy some Norman adventurers 
 had founded the strongest and most compact military 
 power on the Mediterranean. At the same time, under 
 the influence of Roman law, conceptions of imperial 
 
 ^ There is an interesting account of Otto of Wittelsbacli's attempt to 
 discharge the functions of an imperial legate at Eoncaglia in 1068 in the 
 Annales AUahenses, SS. xx. 819, "Cum ergo consedissent et res aliqua agi 
 cepta fuisset, Itali, velut natali odio, Teutonicum ducem audire dediguati, 
 incondite clamore cuncta ceperunt turbare et nullo perfecto negotio 
 ducem compulerunt abire." 
 
236 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 absolutism were becoming familiar among the cities of 
 the north, and the same spirit of antiquarianism which 
 fostered the pride of the communes, invited a more 
 continuous and systematic display of imperial power. 
 To manage their estates, to destroy the kingdom of the 
 Normans, to protect the weaker against the stronger 
 communes, to quench the flames of inter-communal war, 
 to restore the imperial authority which had been dimin- 
 ished with the subsidence of the bishops, these were the 
 aims of the HohenstaufFen emperors of the twelfth 
 century. Their presence in Italy was alternately wel- 
 come and odious, but in the main they were felt to 
 embody that principle of impartial justice to strong and 
 weak alike, which civic factions tended to obliterate. 
 "We wish you to know," writes Bishop Hermann of 
 Constance to the men of Crema in 1147, "that our 
 lord has sent us from his presence into these parts, 
 and has committed to us the management of the 
 business of the whole Italian kingdom, to be con- 
 ducted lawfully and to his honour. AVe are to do 
 justice to all who are oppressed, and especially to 
 churches ; we are firmly to keep the peace, and to 
 liberate all who are held captive in the realm ; we 
 are to put to the ban all rebels and all who disobey 
 our orders, which are the king's orders ; and we are 
 diligently to admonish his lieges of his approach and 
 of his service."^ The legate is but the faint reflection 
 of the emperor. " He is as the father," says an 
 Italian of Frederick Barbarossa, " who, hearing of the 
 excesses of his sons, corrects them and warns them 
 to lay aside their evil habits."^ 
 
 Home troubles, a disastrous crusade and an early 
 
 'Muratori, Antiq. Ital., iv. 28 ; Ficker, Forsch., i., p. 135. 
 ^ Gesta di Federigo I., ed. Monaci, 1. 200-1. 
 
CHAP, xiii] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 237 
 
 death, prevented Conrad III. from carrying out his far- 
 reaching schemes in Italy, and it was left for Frederick 
 Barbarossa to make the German once more an active 
 principle in Italian politics. In his reign there was 
 almost a new German invasion of the country. The 
 old policy of leaving the country to the care of the 
 bishops was outworn and discarded, and except in the 
 case of the sub-Alpine sees, where towns were still weak 
 and bishops were still strong, Frederick does not go out 
 of his way to strengthen the hands of ecclesiastics.^ 
 But in revenge he comes down into Italy with a large 
 army of vassals, part of which is retained to manage the 
 imperial property, to negotiate, to garrison castles, to 
 administer and to fight.^ Germans are sent all over 
 Lombardy, Piedmont, Tuscany and Romagna. Some 
 of them are prelates like Rainald of Cologne, who was 
 imperial legate from June 1164 to 1166; who makes a 
 contract with the consuls of Lucca concerning the re- 
 galia, who is sent to Pisa and to Genoa to stop if 
 possible the war between these two rivals, both so useful 
 to the emperor for his Sicilian enterprise ; who holds a 
 court at Piacenza, and orders the inhabitants to receive 
 the imperial pound as their standard money, and to call 
 in the local coin.^ Cultured, eloquent, provident, affable, 
 munificent and laborious, with a consuming zeal for the 
 imperial prerogative, with a fine complexion and soft 
 yellow hair and well-knit frame, this famous warrior- 
 
 ^ Charters to Aglei, Trent, Ceiieda, Belluno, Feltre. 
 
 ^ " Constituit etiam Teutoiiicos principes ac dominatores super Lom- 
 bardos et Tuscos ut de caetero ejus voluntati nullus Italicus resistendi 
 locum habere ullatenus possit" ( Vita Alex., Watterich, ii. 399) ; and Chron. 
 Vrsp., 1168, SS. xxiii. 355, "Prout opportunitas temporum concessit 
 coepit imperator in partibus Tusciae et terrae Eomanae castra ad se 
 spectantia suae potestati vindicare in quorum praesidiis Teutoiiicos prae- 
 cipue collocavit." 
 
 ^ Ann. Plac. Guelf., SS. xviii., p. 413. 
 
238 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 bishop plays a great figure in imperial politics.-' He 
 tours through Lombardy, Tuscany, Eomagna and the 
 Marches. He fills Tuscany with his Ehineland counts, 
 and holds a parliament for the Tuscan March at Sarzana. 
 At one time he administers the Milanese from Monza, 
 the famous coronation place of the Lombard kings. 
 When the news comes that Pope Victor IV., the first of 
 Barbarossa's antipopes, is dead, the active chancellor flies 
 off to Lucca, elects Guido of Crema Pope in the presence 
 of a mere handful of cardinals, compels all present to 
 swear obedience in a common parliament, and is pre- 
 pared in the following year to force his nominee down 
 the throats of the German clergy. Nor is this young 
 and vigorous Rhinelander a mere diplomatist or ad- 
 ministrator. He is the master of a picked force of men- 
 at-arms bred and trained in Cologne, who are capable 
 of giving a good account of themselves in the field. 
 When the Romans were pressing the Germans hard on 
 the bloody day of Monte Porzio, the battle was restored 
 by the steady discipline of the men of Cologne ; shouting 
 the German battle-hymn " Christ is Born," with the 
 Archbishops of Mainz and Cologne bearing the standards 
 before them, they drove the enemy back into the city, 
 and inflicted on him a crushing defeat. 
 
 On the day following the siege of St. Peter's on 
 July 30, 1167, the emperor presented to Eainald, in 
 the very cathedral which his prowess had helped to 
 reduce, the revenues of Andernach, "because by the 
 aid of God the Romans were most gloriously vanquished 
 by his unconquerable valour and that of the illustrious 
 militia of the Church of Cologne, and thereby our most 
 sacred empire has been most indescribably exalted." ^ 
 
 1 For a description, cf. Acerhi Morenae Cont., SS. xviii., p. 640. 
 - Bbhmer, 2526 ; cf. Gregorovius, iv. 2. 585, English translation. 
 
CHAP, xiii] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRA TION IN ITALY 239 
 
 Or again, there is Christian, Archbishop of Mainz, 
 who was not only Frederick's best general, sharing 
 in the victory of 1167, besieging Ancona in 1173, 
 routing a Sicilian army in 1176 at Carseoli, but also 
 the first permanent legate for the whole of Italy. 
 For eleven years, from his appointment in 1171 to 
 his death in 1183, he was the emperor's legate in 
 Italy, building imperial palaces, destroying disobedient 
 towns, fighting hard in Lombardy, Tuscany and the 
 March, making treaties, obtaining revenues. Soldier, 
 judge, ambassador, a great linguist, speaking, so it 
 was said, with equal facility Latin and Greek, the 
 Italian dialects, French and Walloon, Christian was 
 singularly well fitted to deal with the complex situa- 
 tion in Italy. In all the great transactions of the 
 Italian politics he plays a part only second to the 
 emperor himself. 
 
 The powers of the legate were indeed both varied 
 and autocratic, nor was there any administrative sub- 
 division of the kingdom until the conquest of Sicily 
 by Henry VI. led to the appointment of a special 
 Sicilian legate. The Italian legates would free towns 
 from the feudal superiority of a duke or a margrave, 
 and subject them directly to the empire ; they would 
 wage small wars and cancel municipal privileges ^ ; 
 they would exercise sovereign jurisdiction, compel 
 men to swear to a landpeace ; sell, augment, ad- 
 minister, or enfeoff the imperial property; permit 
 towns to enjoy imperial rights upon payment of 
 
 'Cf. Oberti Annates, 1172 [SS. xviii., p. 94], "Post multa verba juravit 
 Cristianus archicancellarius Magontinae sedis, qui tunc vicem imperatoris 
 in Tuscia tenebat se guerram pro posse Pisanis facturum ordinatione cou- 
 sulum nostrorum [Genoese] et Lucensium ... et juravit quod mitteret 
 Florentines in bannum imperatoris et cassaret et destrueret omnia dona 
 «t privilegia facta utrisque, videlicet Pisanis et Florentinis." 
 
240 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 some stipulated sum ^ ; they kept up the show of 
 a court, occasionally summoned the Italian prelates 
 and nobility to a kind of parliament, and had the 
 right to call out the vassals of the empire to war. 
 Ser^dceable leaders of condottieri, they were invoked 
 to assist in local feuds. Eepresentatives of the supreme 
 judicial power, they interposed between city and city, 
 or decided the cases of individuals. Their rights and 
 powers were contested as often as they were acknow- 
 ledged ; and as they raised a corvee to build a castle, 
 or pounced down on a town for its regalia, they must 
 have incurred some of the odium which inevitably 
 attaches to power. 
 
 After the prelates come the nobles and ministeriales, 
 who garrison the fortresses, administer the imperial 
 property, and watch over the imperial rights. " In- 
 vincible swordsmen, trusting in no men except in the 
 men of their own race, most faithful to their leaders, 
 they would lose their lives rather than betray their 
 fealty." ^ How many little knots of self-reliant German 
 swordsmen were lodged among the fortresses of the 
 Apennines we cannot say, for the charters only throw a 
 very faint and intermittent light, and the chronicles are 
 all but speechless. A complete list of German counts 
 can be made out for the March of Tuscany from 1115, 
 when the march came to the empire, until the end of the 
 twelfth century. We may suspect that a German 
 garrison was lodged at San Miniato, which seems to 
 have been the official centre of the district, and that the 
 German counts of Chiusi and Volterra, and Sienna and 
 
 ' Picker, Forsch., ii., pp. 170-172. 
 
 2 Chron. Ursp., SS. xxiii., "Ensibus invicti, in nullis nisi hominibus suae 
 gentis confidentes, ducibus suis fidelissimi et quibus vitam potius quam 
 fidem possis auf erre." 
 
CHAP, xiii] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 241 
 
 Florence, and the imperial nuntii of Prato and Pistoia 
 were not without a bodyguard of faithful attendants. 
 In the Tuscan patrimony also, which was south of the 
 march, there must have been many German garrisons, 
 for each fortress was contested by the papal party. An 
 imperial palace was built at Viterbo in 1169; there 
 was a palace at Montefiascone, a castle built by 
 Frederick I. at Eadicofani, and possibly also there was a 
 garrison at Citta di Castello to secure the payment of 
 its annual tribute to the Tuscan nuntius at San Miniato. 
 In the later years of the reign we find imperial oiScers 
 governing the whole of Tuscany : in 1185 Anselm of 
 Kunigsberg, President of Tuscany ; in 1191 Conrad of 
 Llitzelhard, Marquis of Tuscany and Romania ; in 1193 
 Philip of Swabia, who is styled Count or else Duke of 
 Tuscany. There are also German dukes of Spoleto, 
 German margraves of Ancona, a German delegate for 
 Piedmont, Thomas of Annone, who is also magistrate 
 in Turin. There probably was not a town in Northern 
 Italy, however small, which did not at some time 
 during Barbarossa's reign admit a German agent of 
 the emperor sent to collect regalia, or to make a treaty, 
 or to appoint an official. 
 
 Frederick scarcely ever put an Italian into a position 
 of extended authority. Conrad of Montferrat, who 
 was probably imperial agent for the Tuscan patrimony 
 from 1172 to 1177, was the most marked exception 
 to this rule ; but as he deserted to the Pope after the 
 Peace of Venice in 1177, waged war upon Christian 
 of Mainz, and once actually succeeded in capturing 
 him, the experiment was not encouraging. In the 
 main, the German rule in Italy was carried out by 
 German administrators. Of the quality of their govern- 
 ment we can say but little ; of its quantity we can 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
242 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 only say that it must have varied from district to 
 district. In Lombardy, where the cities were large 
 and proud, it was from the first disputed. In Tus- 
 cany, where there were many imperial estates, where 
 cities were not yet strong, and where there had been 
 a continuous succession of German officials since the 
 beginning of the twelfth century, the yoke was pro- 
 bably most firmly fixed and most keenly felt. In 
 Piedmont the rights of the Margraviate of ^Montferrat 
 must have interfered to a certain extent with the 
 work of the G-erman delegates, but the destruction of 
 Asti in 1155 struck terror into the small Piedmontese 
 towns, and more than one can be proved to have 
 received G-erman castellains and financial inquisitors. 
 The successor of Christian of Mainz as legate of the 
 sacred palace in Italy, 1184-1186, Godfrey of Helfen- 
 stein, tries and condemns the Count of Savoy, then 
 perhaps the most powerful noble in the land, upon 
 the appeal of the Bishop of Turin. ^ In the Eomagna 
 and in the March of Ancona there was always a party 
 for the emperor, as there was always a party against 
 him ; but the imperial power was seldom acknowledged 
 south of a line drawn from Piome eastwards, and as 
 the appearance of the Germans was often the signal 
 for monetary contributions, they were almost invari- 
 ably resisted. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that this regiment of German 
 soldiers and officials is nowhere felt or declared to be 
 monstrous by the Italian population. In the negotia- 
 
 1 The case is described in Monumenta Ristoriae Patriae. Chartae, 
 vol. i., p. 938. The count was accused per Ubellum before the emperor 
 in his palace at Pavia. He refused to appear though frequently cited. 
 The case was then referred to Godfrey, but still the count refused to 
 appear. Judgment was accordingly given for the plaintiff, "plurium 
 sapientum habito diligenti eonsilio." 
 
CHAP, xiii] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 243 
 
 tions between Frederick and the Lombard towns, it is 
 never for a moment suggested by the cities that the 
 emperor should reserve Italy for the Italians. There are 
 some towns — Asti, for instance, in Piedmont — which 
 even bargain for a German castellain, and there is one 
 family, the Ubertini, in the valley of the Arno, who 
 stipulate that they shall not be submitted to any 
 Latin city or podestat, but only to the emperor, his 
 son, or a miss^is sent from Germany. A Teuton might 
 be brutal, ignorant of Italian, extortionate, but he was 
 always preferable to a Latin neighbour. He was at 
 worst unentangled in local feuds; at best he represented 
 impartial and intelligent justice, with the prestige and 
 the sword of the empire to drive it home. The evidence 
 would seem to show that the ministeriales of Henry VI. 
 were harsh and tyrannical, and certainly at the emperor's 
 death there was something like a popular rising in 
 Tuscany against the Germans. The Pope did all that 
 in him lay to flog up a spirit of Italian nationality. 
 Now was the time to clear the Germans out of Italy. 
 But the Germans clung like limpets to their inex- 
 pugnable crags, or lived on prosperously in the towns 
 sheltered by the sunny indifference of the Italian middle 
 class to all things papal and national.^ The Vatican 
 thundered in vain. The old German officials crop up 
 everywhere — here a burgher of Sienna, there a podestat 
 of Piacenza or Turin ^ — and when Otto IV. came down 
 into Italy to restore the imperial power, it was not the 
 
 ' Cf. the vivid description of the indifference of an Italian town in 
 Salimbene, " Quia hi qui in civitate [Parmensi] erant non intromittebant 
 se de negotiis istis quia nee cum ipsis qui venerant, erant, nee pro 
 imperatore pugnabant, sed sedebant trapezitae sive campsores ad 
 teloneum suum, et alii artiste non dimittebant propter hoc quin 
 operarentur in stationibus suis." 
 
 ^Ficker, ii. 271-2. 
 
244 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 Italians who failed him. Milan espoused his cause, 
 nobles from Lombardy, Tuscany, Spoleto and Ancona 
 thronged to his court, and the army which he led 
 into Apulia was almost entirely Italian/ 
 
 A solid national government in Italy could only have 
 been built up in one way ; through the medium of a 
 representative parliament mainly composed of town 
 delegates. Municipal co-operation in Italy was not 
 entirely a wild dream. The policy of Frederick I. 
 drove the Lombard towns into a temporary but power- 
 ful coalition, and the foundations of a parliamentary 
 system laid by the strong hand, and prompted by the 
 fiscal necessities of Frederick II. were just rising to view 
 in Southern Italy when the fortunes of his house were 
 overwhelmed by death, accident and foreign invasion. 
 But the communion of Italian cities, anywhere outside 
 the kingdom of Sicily, presented enormous and almost 
 insuperable difficulties. The secular hates of neigh- 
 bouring towns, the jealously guarded varieties of 
 municipal custom, the length of the period during 
 which Italy had enjoyed substantial immunity from 
 German interference, were all formidable obstacles to 
 the formation of an imperial system based upon a 
 regular representation of the towns in a central diet. 
 On the other hand the very keenness of civic jealousies 
 opened out to the emperor a gateway into the aff'ections 
 of many of the cities. The Italian towns were great 
 marts, and they were sufficiently civilized to appreciate 
 the advantages of imperial justice. The twelfth century 
 was not far advanced when some of these towns, 
 Bologna for instance, and Faenza and Reggio and 
 Modena, began to import magistrates or podestats from 
 outside and to assign to these invited guests dictatorial 
 
 1 Picker, ii. 406-9. 
 
CHAP, xill] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 245 
 
 powers for a specified period. It was believed that a 
 foreigner alone who was not involved in the factions 
 of the city could deal out impartial justice ; and the 
 prevalence of this practice might encourage the hope 
 that the whole system of justice within the north 
 Italian cities might fall into alien hands, and if into 
 alien hands, why not into German hands, why not 
 into the hands of men nominated by the emperor who 
 wore the Lombard crown, and was the podestat or 
 foreign judge for the whole of Italy? Now when 
 Frederick I. held his diet at Eoncaglia in 1158, that 
 assembly, not content with assigning to him a long 
 list of fiscal rights — such as tolls, coinage, rights over 
 public ways, streams, harbours, silver mines, treasure 
 trove, fisheries, most of which had long been alienated 
 or else had lapsed — went on to give to the emperor 
 the right of appointing the ordinary magistrates or 
 consuls of the towns. And the story goes that the 
 emperor proceeded to ask the Milanese how he should 
 best retain the loyalty of the Italian towns, and that 
 the Milanese advised him to appoint true men either 
 as consuls or as podestats.^ Further, we find that the 
 emperor naturally took this advice, that, for instance, 
 in 1162 the men of Piacenza promise to receive such 
 podestats as the emperor shall choose to appoint, 
 whether Teuton or Lombard, and that they swear to 
 stand by their bidding or by the bidding of the 
 emperor,^ and that, when as a special favour the em- 
 peror does allow the existing podestats to continue his 
 office, he is careful to state that the sole power of 
 appointment lies with him. 
 
 ' The story is given by Vincent of Prague, p. 675. Eahewin's account 
 differs slightly (iv., c. 9), and is on the whole less credible. 
 2 Bohmer, Acta, 598 ; Ficker, Forsch., i. 236. 
 
246 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 Now this clearly meant a great revolution of things. 
 Imagine two or three men in every town holding the 
 highest offices at the pleasure of the emperor, busied in 
 recovering his antiquated financial rights and in extend- 
 ing his jurisdiction. What a unity is suddenly intro- 
 duced into the Italian town system ! If the experiment 
 should by a miracle turn out successfully, and the 
 Milanese, for instance, should be got to go to the courts 
 of these consuls and to abide by their decisions, what 
 unity may not be introduced into the methods of 
 administering justice ! From time to time the emperor 
 or his general legate, having confidence in these im- 
 perially governed towns wUl hold a diet, and the 
 representatives of the faithful towns will attend it and 
 promise money and men. In time there may be some- 
 thing like an imperial parliamentary system for North 
 Italy. 
 
 The towns did not object to foreign podestats, nor 
 did Frederick for the most part appoint foreigners. It 
 was, on the contrary, more to his interest to bestow the 
 consulate upon some influential citizen who had a party 
 at his back or a purse in his pocket. Frederick's failure 
 was due to other causes. The towns valued their 
 autonomy. They did not mind foreigners but they 
 wished to choose them for themselves. They feared 
 that the emperor might confer judicial power upon some 
 bishop or influential feudatory, and this would mean that 
 the work of emancipation would have to be done all 
 over again. ^ They knew that together with the judge 
 came the fiscal inquisitor with his odious mission to 
 
 ^Cf. Frederick's privilege for Asti, 1159, " Adjicientes quoque con- 
 stanter statuimus quod praedictam potestatem de civitate et comitatu 
 nulli archiepiscopo, nuUi episcopo, nulli marchioni, nulii comiti, nulli 
 potestati unquam concedemus nisi solis nostris fidelibus de ipsa civitate " 
 (Ughelli, Ital. Sacr., iv., p. 366 ; Ficker,. Fwsch., i., pp. 236-7). 
 
CHAP, xill] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 247 
 
 recover obsolete dues and taxes, and to raise a large 
 and permanent revenue for the emperor, whereas the 
 revenue for many hundreds of years had been slight 
 and occasional. They murmured at the introduction 
 of the German bans, or judicial penalties.' The Lom- 
 bard towns revolted against these decrees of Eoncaglia, 
 which threatened alike their autonomy and their tills. 
 During the course of the war Barbarossa was obliged 
 to make concessions to the cities which embraced his 
 side : free choice of consuls and all the regalia to 
 Cremona in 1162 in exchange for a yearly payment 
 of two hundred marks of silver ; full autonomy to Pisa 
 and to G-enoa in 1162; free choice of consuls to 
 Pavia in 1164, and all the regalia, "except the bridge 
 and the bank" ; remission of the regalia, of the Roman, 
 Sicilian, Apulian, Calabrian and Veronese expedition 
 to Mantua in 1164; and so on, concession following 
 concession.^ The upshot of it all was that the cities 
 would not fight for Frederick unless he promised 
 them autonomy and the regalia. They were prepared 
 in return to consent that their consuls should swear 
 fealty, should receive the regalia as imperial fiefs, and 
 pay a fixed yearly sum in exchange for them. The 
 towns in fact became tenants-in-chief of the crown. 
 
 This was in reality the basis of the Peace of Constance 
 in 1183, which closed the war between Frederick and 
 the Lombard league. The consuls shall be appointed by 
 the city. But they must be selected from citizens who 
 
 ' Chron. Ursp., SS. xxiii., p. 348, " Super quo contra novas institutiones 
 imperatoris murmurare ceperunt Lombardi ; non est enim eorum con- 
 suetude banna solvere, sed ut secundum leges Eomanas injuriam passis 
 satisfaciant, secundum quod juraverint laesi se talem velle pati injuriam ; 
 de quibus acquisitis judex tantum vicesimam vel minorem secundum 
 quod ab his decretum est recipit portionem." 
 
 2Weiland, i., Nos. 218, 221, 212. 
 
248 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 have done fealty to the emperor ; they must receive 
 investiture from the emperor or his envoy, and the 
 investiture must be renewed every five years. All 
 imperial vassals must receive investiture and do fealty, 
 and all citizens from the ages of fifteen to seventy must 
 do fealty Likewise. At the same time the fiscal rights 
 of the empire are circumscribed. The cities of the 
 league are to enjoy all the regaKa which they had 
 hitherto enjoyed, or which they were then enjoying — 
 pastures, mills, water, bridges, tolls, the right of forti- 
 fication, of levying fodrum or purveyance, of raising 
 the host, of full jurisdiction. Only when the emperor 
 enters Lombardy " to take the crown," they are bound 
 to give him the royal and accustomedyb(ir^(n^, to restore 
 the ways and bridges and to provide a sufficient market 
 for his troops, but the emperor must not make 
 unnecessary delay in a city or bishopric. Nor was 
 the emperor permitted to obtain any great measure of 
 judicial authority in the city. Appeals were allowed to 
 go to the imperial court in cases where the amount 
 exceeded 25 imperial pounds, but there was to be 
 no compulsion to go to Germany. The emperor was 
 to have his own envoy in every city or bishopric. 
 The envoy was to be elected by the counsel of the 
 consuls of the city. He was to swear to examine 
 " according to the laws and customs of the city within 
 two months from joinder of issue or the reception 
 of an appeal," and a clause, which was inserted in the 
 preliminary negotiations to the efiect that the cities 
 were permitted the Lex domini imperataris, was 
 omitted in the final draft of the peace. ^ The emperor 
 
 i"Libellariae et precariae in suo statu permaneant secundum con- 
 suetudinem unius cujusque civitatis uon obstante lege nostra quae 
 dicitur imperatoris Friderici" (Weiland, L, Nos. 293-4 ; cf. sects. 24-32). 
 
CHAP, xiil] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 249 
 
 still preserved a nominal suzerainty over the Lombard 
 league, but all the substantial realities of power were 
 ceded to the cities. He had aimed at dividing the 
 cities, but so far he had only united them, and now 
 he was forced to give his written sanction to the 
 continuance of an armed league. 
 
 Still Frederick had achieved much. If he was for the 
 moment unsuccessful in Lombardy, he was yet able in 
 Tuscany, in Piedmont, in the Eomagna and in the 
 March of Ancona to obtain revenues and to overawe 
 cities. His officials were for the most part real officials, 
 holding office either for life or for a limited period, and 
 not feudatories. Although he had to accept the Lom- 
 bard league in 1183, three years had not passed before 
 he was able to detach Milan from the allied cities and to 
 fasten it to the imperial cause by an ample charter of 
 privilege. The reign of Henry VI. witnessed a new 
 invasion of German ministeriales, but in the disputed 
 election which followed his death the imperial adminis- 
 tration must have been completely disjointed. It was 
 not until 1238 and 1239 that an imperial administration 
 was re-established in the north. 
 
 There is a letter, proceeding from the chancery of 
 Frederick II., which epitomizes his Italian policy. "We 
 believe," says the writer, "that Providence has thus 
 wonderfully guided our steps to no other end than that, 
 while we rule Jerusalem in the east and the Sicilian 
 kingdom and the people of powerful Germany in deep 
 peace, we should bring back Italy, which lies in the 
 centre of our dominion, to the recognition of our 
 majesty and to the union of the empire." The con- 
 quest of Italy falls between the years 1232 and 1238. 
 There were two nobles in the Trevisan March — Eccelin 
 III. and his brother Alberic — who, seeking to carve their 
 
2 so THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 way to fortune by entering the Lombard league, came 
 to discover tbat their hopes were not likely to be 
 realized. Tortured by ambition, condemned to watch 
 the growing power of a rival, A^zo of Este, these two 
 Gondottieri desert to the emperor, and signalize their 
 treacherous accession by doing him a great service. At 
 their instigation, on April 14, 1232, the burghers of 
 Verona revolt against their Lombard podestat and 
 receive a German garrison. Verona was the key to the 
 Brenner Pass, to the great military road between 
 Germany and Italy. Master of Verona, Frederick easily 
 foils the insurrection of his son Henry in 1235, inter- 
 cepting his traitorous communion with the Lombard 
 league. In 1236 he subdues Vicenza ; in 1237 Padua 
 and Tre\dso submit to his generals, Mantua deserts the 
 league, and MUan is crushed on the decisive field of 
 Cortenuova. In 1238 follows the submission of Lodi 
 and the conquest of Piedmont, and the north of Italy 
 lay at Frederick's feet. In 1239 Frederick began to 
 organize an administration such as Italy had not seen 
 since the Lombards obliterated the fabric of Justinian. 
 His son, King Enzio, is appointed [July 25, 1239] 
 legate for the whole of Italy. Under him there are a 
 number of provincial governors or general vicars, for 
 the Trevisan March and the Bishopric of Trent, for 
 Lombardy, for the country east of Pavia, for Lunigiana, 
 for the JMarch of Ancona, for the Duchy of Spoleto, 
 for the conquered parts of the patrimony of St. Peter. 
 Beneath them come the vicars and the podestats or 
 captains of the towns, who are nominated by the 
 emperor and salaried according to his directions.^ In 
 the next year [1240] the high court of Sicily is trans- 
 
 1 In the last years of his reign Frederick seems to have everywhere 
 claimed the right to name the podestats (Ficker, Forsch., ii., p. 529). 
 
CHAP. Xlii] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 251 
 
 formed. It becomes a court following the emperor and 
 competent to deal with the cases of the whole empire. 
 It is clear that Frederick intended to weld Italy and 
 Sicily together in a common judicial and administrative 
 system. 
 
 The loose administration of Frederick Barbarossa 
 became in the hands of Frederick II. a bureaucracy 
 closely knit and closely watched. The personnel had 
 ceased to be German. The emperor came to employ 
 Apulians trained in the rigorous methods and the abso- 
 lutist doctrines of the Sicilian chancery. For the most 
 part these judges and administrators were selected from 
 the well-to-do aristocracy of the Regno, and it was con- 
 sidered important that they should have relations living 
 within its borders to serve as hostages for their loyalty. 
 Constantly changed and shifted from district to district, 
 appointed and dismissed at a nod from the emperor, 
 these Apulians are the most supple instruments of 
 despotism. From 1237 onwards they crowd into the 
 official posts in Northern and Central Italy. They know 
 the language, and therefore they are more acceptable 
 than the Germans. They are foreigners, and therefore 
 they are more acceptable than local men. We find them 
 in the most diverse positions, discharging the most 
 diverse functions. An Apulian knight as podestat of 
 the Bishop of Trent sits at Botzen, and asks for a judg- 
 ment after the German manner. Knights from the 
 Abruzzi govern the small villages round Viterbo, and 
 the names of the captains and podestats of many of the 
 Piedmontese towns betray a southern origin. 
 
 Over and above these Apulian barons, knights and 
 legists come the members and connections of the im- 
 perial family — the emperor's sons in the first place ; 
 Enzio, legate for all Italy; Frederick of Antioch, general 
 
252 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 vicar of Tuscany ; Richard of Teate, general vicar 
 in the March, in the Duchy and in the Romagna ; his 
 sons-in-law, Richard of Caserta, vicar general of the 
 Holy Empire [1244], through the March, the Duchy 
 of Spoleto, and from Amelia to Corneto ; Jacob of 
 Caneto, sometime vicar of the land from Pavia to 
 Asti [1248]; Eccelin da Romano, the real master of the 
 Trevisan March. A nephew-in-law, Thomas of Savoy, is 
 appointed general vicar for Piedmont in 1248. One 
 brother-in-law, Galvano Lancia, is vicar in Roman 
 Tuscany in 1248 ; another, Manfred Lancia, holds a 
 succession of appointments in North Italy, as general 
 vicar of Lombardy east of Pavia in 1238, as captain 
 of the sacred empire from Pavia to Asti in 1248 and 
 1249, as podestat of Lodi and vicar, under Thomas 
 of Savoy, of Lombardy west of the Lambro in 1250. 
 
 The North Italians did not object to the Sicilian 
 invasion of the thirteenth century as they object to the 
 Sicilian invasion now. But history had not prepared 
 them for the despotic methods of the Norman kingdom, 
 and religion counselled distrust of the despot. The 
 whole of Lombardy was racked and ruined with war 
 from 1237 to Frederick's death. " Men could not 
 plough, nor sow, nor mow, nor make vineyards, nor 
 live in villages. ' The husbandmen worked in gangs 
 with a squad of soldiery to protect them ; travellers 
 were robbed and hanged by the highwaymen ; the 
 wolves, no longer kept down by the rural population, 
 howled outside the cities and entered at night to 
 devour the men who slept under the porticos and 
 in waggons.^ For some of those who suffered these 
 horrors the struggle meant the crushing of the in- 
 famous thing, the fight for all that was holy and 
 
 ^ Salimbene, Chron. Parm., p. 71. 
 
CHAP. XIII] IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION IN ITALY 253 
 
 safe, the desperate effort to preserve a colierent and 
 comforting scheme of life. To most it was merely 
 the fierce old rage of the communes fought with larger 
 supplies of men and of money. Whether it was religion 
 or a series of accidents, or the carelessness of his sup- 
 porters, or the better organization of his enemies, or 
 the distrust of despotism, or the treachery of many 
 of his servants which decided the day against the 
 emperor, we cannot say. Probably all these elements 
 were mixed in the cup. But in any case the first 
 administrative and judicial system which had been 
 established for all Italy, since the treachery of Narses 
 was alleged to have opened the Alpine passes to the 
 Lombards, went to pieces in the downfall of his house. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE. 
 
 In 966 Benedict of Soracte, one of the rudest Latinists 
 of a rude age, thus lamented the severities practised by 
 Otto I. within the city of Rome : " Woe unto thee, 
 Rome, who art oppressed and trodden under foot by so 
 many nations, who hast even been captured by a Saxon 
 king, and thy people put to the sword, and thy strength 
 reduced to nought. Thy gold and thy silver they carry 
 away in their purses. Thou wast mother, now art thou 
 become daughter. That which thou didst possess thou 
 hast lost. Long didst thou fight with foreign nations. 
 On all sides thou didst conquer the world from the 
 north to the south. Thou hast been usurped by the 
 race of the Gauls; thou wast all too fair."^ 
 
 Again and again through the troubled course of 
 Italian history we hear this refrain of wounded pride, 
 in Buoncompagno's history of the siege of Ancona in 
 1174,^ in the speeches of the Pope and of the Lombards 
 at the conference of Ferrara in 1177 as given in 
 Romuald of Salerno, when the Pope retails how he has 
 withstood the "Teuton fury," and the cities tell how 
 
 1 SS. iii. 719. 
 
 ^ De Ohsidione Anconae Liber, c. 3 ; Muratori, Scriptores, vi. 925, " Nam 
 opinio in hanc me trabit sententiam ut non credam Italiam posse fieri 
 tributariam alicui, nisi Italicorum malitia procederet ac livore ; in 
 legibus enim habetur : ' Non est Provincia sed Domina Provinciarum.' " 
 
PT. II, CH. XIV.] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 255 
 
 they have rejected the offer of the emperor in order to 
 save " the honour and liberty of Italy and the dignity 
 of the Eoman Church."^ We hear it in the letter of 
 Falcandus on the calamity of Sicily;^ it may have 
 entered as an element into Bordello's cry to Dante :^ 
 
 " Ahi serva Italia di dolore ostello, 
 Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta, 
 Non donna di provincie ma bordello." 
 
 It sounds in Filicaja's famous lament : 
 
 " Italia Italia tu cui feo la forte 
 Done infelice di beUezza ond' hai 
 Funesta dote d' infinite guai 
 Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porta." 
 
 The feeling that Italy, " the mistress of the pro- 
 vinces," was exposed to the ravages of drunken bar- 
 barians with uncouth manners and uncivil speech, was 
 mingled with the other feeling which recognized in the 
 empire a great tradition and a present necessity.* But 
 
 'SS. xix. 445. 2 UgQ Falcando, ed. Siragusa, p. 175. 
 
 ^ Purgatorio, vi. 78. 
 
 ■•The Bergomask panegyrist of Frederick I. describes the Lombard 
 rumours as to the character of the imperial army in Virgilian phrases : 
 " Hunc homines ductare feros qui dentibus artus 
 Humanos lanient mordentes more ferarum 
 Queis caro cruda cibus, potus cruor, horrida visu 
 Corporis effigies " {Gesta di Federigo I., ed. Monaci, 1. 1810). 
 Cf. also Ann. Alt., 1068, SS. xx. 89, "Itali sua superbia elati et velut 
 natali odio Teutonicorum ducem audire dedignati," and Frederick I.'s 
 letter of 1168 in Otto of Freising, SS. iv. 116. On the other hand, see 
 the curious poem written by an Italian on the accession of Henry II. 
 (Diimmler, Anselm der Peripatetiker, pp. 72-82) : 
 
 " Eegnorum robur periit quando Otto cecidit, 
 Dum Otto noster moritur. Mars in mundo oritur. 
 Mutavit caelum faciem et terra imaginem." 
 And Villani, Cron., iv. 1, " Questo Otto (Otto I.) amendo molto tutta 
 Italia e mise in pace e buono stato, e abbatte le forze de' tiranni" ; and 
 iv. 3, "Parve a Sergio papa ... che lo'mperio fosse alia lezione degli 
 Alemanni, imperocch' erano possenti genti e grande bracchio del Cristian- 
 
256 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 the contempt and dislike of Teuton civilization was 
 never sufficiently strong to quencli the fire of civic 
 jealousy, to create a national spirit or even to figure as 
 a serious political force. The coronation of Arduin of 
 Ivrea as king of Italy [1014] was but a momentary 
 flicker of patriotism which one Teuton victory was 
 sufficient to extinguish. The destruction of Spoleto 
 and Milan and the sack of St. Peter's were not sufficient 
 to rouse Italy against Barbarossa. The Lombards fought 
 not for a united Italy but for municipal franchises, and 
 the jealousy between Milan and Cremona was far more 
 bitter and intense than the hatred of Teuton and of 
 Latin. The letters of Innocent III., the first Pope who 
 made a serious endeavour to appeal to a common Italian 
 sentiment and to clear the Germans out of Italy, met 
 with but a temporary and a partial response.^ 
 
 Still the persuasion remained that the Germans were 
 an inferior race. " Their speech," says a Provenjal poet 
 of the twelfth century (with but a faint appreciation 
 of the discomforts of the north-western portions of the 
 empire) "seems like the barking of dogs, and for this 
 reason I would not be Lord of Frisia, because I should 
 every day hear the voices of the damned." There 
 was in fact during the whole of this period very little 
 literary reciprocity between the two countries. Otto I. 
 imported some Italian scholars into Germany, and 
 bishop Luitprand of Cremona wrote his pointed and 
 intelligent history at Frankfort. A vainglorious 
 Milanese rhetorician, Anselm the Peripatetic, followed 
 the court of Henry III., and according to his own 
 account secured the applause of Gaul, Burgundy, 
 Saxony, and even of barbarous Franconia for a stupid 
 
 ^Cf. the curious evidence on this point collected by Ficker, Forsch., 
 ii. 278. 
 
CHAP. XIV] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 257 
 
 treatise upon rhetoric, which was justly viewed with 
 disdain by the scholars of Mainz. ^ The emperor himself 
 is said to have been instructed by a monk from Pavia, 
 Almaric, afterwards Abbot of Farfa [1039-46], and 
 perhaps the connection between Germany and Italy 
 was never so tightly drawn as during this age, when 
 the papal chair for a time became a German see, and 
 a large number of Germans were sent to occupy Italian 
 bishoprics.' But the wars of the Investitures desolated 
 Germany and stayed the development of German 
 culture. When these wars had passed away France 
 was drawing Italian students to her schools with a 
 magnet whose power increased with the advance of the 
 twelfth century. The culture of Germany and Italy 
 had sprung apart during this epoch of internal struggle 
 and brief and ineffectual imperial raids. When Otto of 
 Freising accompanied Barbarossa on his first journey into 
 Italy, the spectacle filled him with surprise. Despite 
 the Lombard invasions, the immigration of German 
 
 ' Some of the Milanese clergy seem to have studied in Germany during 
 the eleventh century, but the general drift of Italian students was to France 
 or Spain (Landulf, Hist. Mid., ii., c. 35, SS. viii. 71). For Almaric, cf. 
 SS. xi. 559, and Gieaebrecht, KZ., iii. 288-361. For Anselm, cf. EpisUda 
 Anselmi ad Drogonem Magistrum, ed. Dummler, Anselm, p. 57 : "A 
 liberalibus enim vestris disciplinis cum ad capellam me contuli imperatoris 
 et ex vestre philosophiae otic cum seculari me dedi negotio, opus quod 
 apud vos edidi, mecum, ut precepistis, detuli et universis civitatibus quas 
 in eundo perambulavimus vestris litteris aprobatum repreaentavimus. 
 Probanda cuius studia universa consonat Gallia, Burgundia, Saxonia, 
 barbara quidem Frantia. Ex quis Maguntia tandem laudavit ingrata, 
 Droconicam quidem sectam et penitus Italiacam invidens disciplinam." 
 Some lines from the Rhetorimachia may be cited : 
 
 " Urbs Augusta probat quod Drogo laude coronat 
 Basla nee infirmat quod Parma Placentia firmat : 
 Littoribus Eeni diadema Maguntia regni 
 Digna laude probat quod tellus Italia donat." 
 
 ^For signs of literary correspondence between Germany and Italian 
 clerks in this century, cf. Pfiugk-Harttung, Iter Italicum, vol. ii. 
 VOL. II. R 
 
258 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 families, the appointments of German prelates, it was 
 an utterly strange land with an alien civilization. The 
 Lombard had been absorbed by the Latin, as completely 
 as in our own day the G-erman is absorbed by the Anglo- 
 Saxon in America. The wars of Barbarossa instructed 
 the Germans in siege-warfare, and induced a certain 
 number of them to frequent the University of Bologna ; 
 but since the armies of the empire were recruited from 
 the feudal class, and the townsfolk were allowed to 
 purchase exemption, there was no fruitful reception of 
 Italian culture.-' A handful of German administrators 
 acquired a knowledge of the Italian language,^ which 
 was as yet very slightly removed from Latin. Two 
 Italian poets, the anonymous writer of Bergamo and 
 Godfrey of Viterbo, belonged to the court of Barbarossa, 
 and celebrated his praises in copious hexameters, and 
 Henry II. found in another Italian, Peter of Ebulo, 
 a naive and tasteless encomiast. But on the whole 
 the law and the letters of Germany remained unaffected 
 by the contact. Germany, like Italy, was looking 
 westward for her culture. 
 
 In 825 Lothair II., commenting severely upon the 
 decay of Italian education, issued a capitulary to estab- 
 lish schools in nine specified towns in Northern and 
 Central Italy.^ From 825 till 1158, when Frederick 
 Barbarossa promulgated from Bologna his famous 
 
 1 Hegel has suggested that the office of consul may have been derived 
 by some of the German towns from Italy ; Eieler Monatichrift, 1854, 
 p. 703. The name first occurs in Rainald of Dassel's charter for Mede- 
 bach in Westphalia in 1165. The term ■would, however, as my friend 
 Dr. Keutgen suggests, be the natural translation of the German 
 Rathgeher. 
 
 ^ A list is given by Ficker, Forsch., ii. 271. 
 
 ^ Cap. Olon. Eccl. primum, Boretius, i. 327. The towns named are 
 Pavia, Ivrea, Turin, Cremona, Florence, Fermo, Verona, Vicenza, Forum. 
 Julii. 
 
CHAP. XIV] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 259 
 
 privilege known as the Authentic Habita/ in favour 
 of the student class of the Lombard kingdom, no 
 imperial ordinance affecting Italian education appears to 
 have been issued. During this long interval of time 
 Italy was recovering her classical traditions. Not a 
 city but fabricates for itself some legendary connection 
 with the ancient world. Padua shows the tomb of 
 Antenor, Milan the statue of Hercules, Fiesole looks 
 back to Catiline. Meanwhile schools steadily multiply 
 and develop. In the tenth century private as well 
 as cathedral and monastic schools are mentioned by 
 Katherius of Verona. In the eleventh century Milan 
 had two prosperous schools founded by the munificence 
 of her archbishops.^ Pa via sent Lanfranc to govern 
 England with William the Conqueror ; Aosta produced 
 Anselm ; the school of Parma was famous for the phil- 
 osophy of its founder Drogo.^ Under the enlightened 
 patronage of the Abbot Desiderius, afterwards Pope 
 Victor III. [1058-1087], the monastery of Montecassino 
 became a distinguished centre for art, science, poetry 
 and history.* The keeper of its archives was Leo 
 Ostiensis, one of the most sober and impartial of Italian 
 historians. Constantinus Afer, founder of the medical 
 school at Salerno and translator of the medical works of 
 the Arabs and the Greeks ; Pandulf, a medieval Manilius, 
 who wrote in verse upon mathematics and astronomy; 
 
 ^ Weiland, i., No. 178 ; Eashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle 
 Ages, pp. 146-149. 
 
 ^Landulfi, Hist. Med., ii., c. 35 [SS. viii. 71], "In atrio interiori . . . 
 philosopliorum vero scolae diversarum artium peritiam habentium ubi 
 urbani et extranei clerici philosophiae doctrinis studiose imbuebantur, 
 erant duae." 
 
 ^ Ghronicon St. Euherti, c. 9 [SS. viii. 573]. 
 
 * Cliran. Mon. Cass., iii., c. 26 ff. ; SS. vii. 716 ff. for an account of the 
 architectural and artistic energy of Desiderius, who among other things 
 sent to Constantinople for workers in mosaics, reviving an art which 
 had perished in Italy for more than five hundred years. 
 
26o THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 Alfanus the poet, Amatus the historian of the Norman 
 conquest in Italy, are all connected with this monastic 
 stronghold of the papal party. Wipo, the Burgundian 
 chaplain of Conrad II., drew a frank contrast between 
 the general zeal for education which was characteristic 
 of Italy and the negligent ignorance of the Germans.^ 
 In the twelfth century the culture of Italy was superior 
 in every point to that of Germany. 
 
 As yet there was hardly any vernacular literature 
 in either country, less in Italy, where Latin was still 
 intelligible to the people, than in Germany. But 
 when German vernacular literature did develop itself, it 
 received no hearing south of the Alps. Walther von der 
 Vogelweide, the best of the German lyrists [born 
 1160-70], who sung at the court of Philip of Swabia 
 and Otto, who received a fief from Frederick II., who 
 wrote short political satires against the papacy, and was 
 the most ardent of imperialists, leaves no trace on 
 Italian literature. He is not referred to by Dante, who 
 shared his opinions, and who was seemingly wholly 
 ignorant that there was such a thing as German poetic 
 literature.^ The Italians were as ignorant of the litera- 
 ture of the country from which they derived their 
 supreme political rulers as the French contemporaries 
 of Elizabeth and James I. were ignorant of Chaucer and 
 Spenser and Shakespeare. The vernacular literature of 
 Italy rose out of contact with France, not out of contact 
 with Germany. Though the saga of Theodoric of Verona 
 is incorporated in the Niebelungen Lied, the great epic 
 
 1 Wipo, Tetralogus, SS. xi., p 251 : 
 
 " Hoc servant Itali post prima crepundia cuneti 
 Et sudare scholis mandatur tota juventus." 
 ' Despite the authority of Mr. A. J. Butler, who traces obligations to 
 Eckart, a German mystic, I think it extremely unlikely that Dante knew 
 German. 
 
CHAP. XIV] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 261 
 
 is unknown south of the Alps, and in the verse of the 
 Italian epigoni even Charles the Great himself is worked 
 up into a champion of Latin culture against Teuton 
 barbarism and guile. 
 
 The later years of the Hohenstauffen dynasty, while 
 they brought about great changes, constitutional and 
 political, especially within the limits of the Norman 
 kingdom of Sicily, also gave an impulse to manifold 
 developments of thought and literary expression. It 
 was an age of strange contrasts and novelties ; of hardy 
 incredulity and infantine faith ; of monstrous and 
 fantastic forms of religious revivalism ; of quickened 
 scientific curiosity and stern ecclesiastical repression. The 
 whole of the western world seemed to be breaking away 
 from its old moorings. A wave of asceticism, of protest 
 against the whole sacerdotal hierarchy with its preten- 
 sions to special gifts, its possession of worldly wealth, 
 its ambition of political power, passed over the north of 
 Italy into Southern France, fed by many long and 
 obscure rills of Oriental belief and practice. In Umbria, 
 where the air had long been filled with mystic prophecy, 
 a new teacher arose in the person of St. Francis, who, 
 living in a kind of blithe and inspired communication 
 with nature, rebuked the spirit of morbid and extrava- 
 gant renunciation and refreshed the Christian religion 
 with his simple and poetic raptures. Lapse of time and 
 the growth of trade had softened the antagonism be- 
 tween east and west, and Arabic science and culture was 
 beginning to influence the mind of the Latins, bringing 
 with it through the Aristotelian commentaries of 
 Averroes a pantheistic philosophy, derived ultimately 
 from a passage in the De Anima, which long and pro- 
 foundly disturbed the even waters of medieval thought. 
 
 There was in fact an almost universal revolt against 
 
262 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 the old accepted scheme of life. The autocracy of Latin 
 was breaking down before the pressure of the fresh 
 vernacular romance languages, now for the first time 
 receiving a shapely form, and with this new and 
 delightful instrument of speech, artistic natures won a 
 congenial utterance. Naturalistic ways of looking at 
 life are as old as nature herself, but they cannot be 
 conveniently clothed in the stiff garb of an ecclesiastical 
 language.^ As well might the convent bell accord with 
 the lay of the troubadour. But with the spread of 
 vernacular literature new fountains of joy were suddenly 
 unsealed. Almost within the limits of a single genera- 
 tion Italy seems to experience a kind of renaissance. 
 Art and Hterature had escaped from the cloister to the 
 castle and the market-place ; Latin had given place to 
 Italian ; and lay culture made its first appearance since 
 Eutilius Namatianus wrote his famous lament upon 
 Alaric's siege of Eome. "In 1242 the strenuous and 
 splendid man Azzo of Este caused to be painted a picture 
 by the excellent master of painting, Gelasius . . . the 
 which Gelasius was in Venice under the discipline of the 
 admirable master Theophanes of Constantinople. . . . 
 And he painted the image of our Lady with the blessed 
 fruit of her womb, Jesus, in her arms ; also the gonfalon 
 with St. George the knight, with the girl and the fierce 
 dragon slain by the lance. With the said gonfalon was 
 the duke Tiepoli of Venice. In the said picture he 
 portrayed the fall of Phaeton with beautiful colours 
 according to the poet, and a memorable example accord- 
 ing to the psalm : ' Dispersit superbos. Laus Deo, 
 amen. 
 
 ' A great genius like Abailard or St. Bernard could infuse passion into 
 medieval Latin ; but the language of the frolicsome Salimbene is already 
 half way towards Italian. 
 
 2 Moiiaci, Crestomazia Italiaaa, vol. i., p. 41. 
 
CHAP. XIV] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 263 
 
 At the same time the forces of repression gathered 
 themselves together to conserve the old order of things. 
 A whole civilization, more cultivated and refined than 
 any which the Middle Ages had yet seen, was within 
 the space of a few years crushed out in Provence. The 
 mighty and ruthless engine of the Inquisition, created 
 for this purpose, spread terror among the hardy and 
 luxurious, while a great aud learned G-erman, Albert 
 of Cologne, after protracted study in the schools of 
 Italy, elaborated the gigantic eirenikon of the Aristo- 
 telian theology, harmonizing, so far as it was possible 
 to do so, the perilous learning of Aristotle with the 
 sayings of the Fathers. 
 
 But the new developments of sceptical inquiry and 
 artistic impulse, though they might be trained by the 
 thinker or the inspired mendicant to accord with the 
 traditions of the past, could not be wholly arrested. The 
 exiles of the Albigensian crusades brought their songs, 
 their viols and their hates to the court of Palermo, and 
 there, for the first time since the days of Desiderius of 
 Pavia and Arichis of Beneventum, Italy found a literary 
 capital. Frederick II., who, as the old Italian novel 
 says, "was in truth the mirror of the world in speech 
 and in costume, and loved much delicate speech, and 
 made a study in giving wise answers," was the Maecenas 
 of this new culture. Part Greek, part Italian, part 
 Mussulman, Frederick seems to reflect all the varied 
 lights and shadows of his age. He is cruel as the 
 Byzantine, courteous as the Arab ; tolerant as Gallio, 
 when he obeys his intellect or his temperament, 
 intolerant as the Inquisition itself at the call of policy. 
 He is sensual and treacherous, avaricious and friendless, 
 yet he abounds with high aspirations and intelligent 
 desires. Brought up "in happy Palermo, that trilingual 
 
264 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 town," he feels tlie claims of three ci^'ilizations, and 
 mediates between the Arab, the Latin, and the Greek. 
 His influence is experienced in all departments of Italian 
 life, in customs and manners, ia poetry and learning, in 
 architecture and sport, in philosophical speculation and 
 legal reform. He founded the University of Naples, 
 encouraged the medical schools at Salerno, caused the 
 works of Aristotle to be translated, investigated the 
 origin of language and the anatomy of the human body. 
 There was no subject of human inquiry which he was 
 not willing to attack, and no conclusion which he was 
 not willing to face. The disendowment of the Church, 
 the abolition of the Papacy, the rejection of Christian 
 beliefs, the mortality of the soul, were aU familiar 
 ideas within that brUliant and cosmopolitan circle of 
 intellectual Epicureans, where ^Michael Scott translated 
 into Latin the commentaries of Averroes. and where 
 the study of comparative reUgions was, for the 
 first time since the birth of Christ, dispassionately 
 pursued. 
 
 It is from this court at Palermo that Italian poetry 
 first issues. "Those illustrious heroes,' ^TOte Dante, 
 " Frederick Caesar and his well-born son Manfred, dis- 
 playing the nobility and rectitude of their natures, so 
 long as fortune permitted, followed humane things and 
 disdained the ways of the brute. And so the gifted 
 and the noble-hearted strove to be guided by the 
 majesty of these great princes, so that every work of 
 excellence produced at that time by a Latin author 
 first of all issued from the hall of these great kings. 
 And because Sicily was the royal throne it has come 
 to pass that whatever our predecessors produced in 
 the vulgar tongue is called Sicilian. "^ 
 
 ' Dante, De Vulgari Eloquio, i., o. 12. 
 
CHAP, xiv] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 265 
 
 Versification was a fashionable pastime at the court 
 of Frederick. The emperor himself, his two sons 
 Enzio and Manfred, his chief counsellor Peter de la 
 Vigne all gave themselves up to this elegant pursuit. 
 For forty-six years, from 1220 to the death of Manfred 
 in 1266, there is scarcely a literary man in Italy or 
 Sicily who is not connected with the court. ^ Notaries 
 and judges, advocates and ambassadors relieved the 
 tedium of business with the charms of lyric composition, 
 and perhaps there was no surer passport to royal favour. 
 A story is told that one day, perhaps in Umbria, Fra 
 Pacifico, the disciple of St. Francis, presented himself 
 before Frederick, and singing some of those exquisite 
 devotional lyrics, of which we have specimens in St. 
 Francis's own hymn to the sun, and in the fourteenth 
 century Umbrian lauds, received a crown and the title of 
 Rex Versuum.^ In any case the influence of this royal 
 patronage cannot fail to have been widely felt, and it 
 came at a most critical juncture. Italian vernacular 
 literature was only just trembling into life, for the 
 political distraction of the country had long retarded 
 the gro^w^h of any common linguistic canons.^ The 
 dialects of Italian were numerous and debased, as is 
 
 ' Arrigo Testa d'Arezzo died fighting for Frederick II. as podestat of 
 Eeggio. Odo della Colonna is probably the imperialist senator of Rome, 
 1238-41. Einaldo d'Aqnino corresponded with Frederick II. Eugieri 
 d'Amici is probably the ambassador sent to the Saracens, 1240-2. 
 Guidotto da Bologna and Stefano da Messina dedicate works to Manfred 
 Jacopo Mortacci da Pisa is sent on an embassy to Arragon by Manfred in 
 1260. Percevalle Doria is made by Manfred vicar in the march of 
 Ancona and the duchies of Eome and Spoleto. Giacomo da Lentino and 
 Stefano da Messina are notaries. Cf. Monaci, Crestomazia, vols. i. and ii., 
 and Gaspary, Sicilianische Dichterschvle, pp. 10-1.3. 
 
 ^ Gaspary, Geschichte der Italienischen Litteratur, p. 143. 
 
 ^Boncompagno [1215-26], "Mercatores in suis epistolis verborum 
 ornatum non requirunt quia fere omnes et singuli per idiomata propria 
 sen vulgaria vel per corruptum Latinum ad invicem sibi scribunt et 
 rescribunt." 
 
266 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part II 
 
 shown by the fact that Dante counted fourteen main 
 varieties, and hints that there may be more than a 
 thousand subsidiary shades of patois. No great writer 
 had arisen to shape a language or to form a literature. 
 There was no common Italian hero or national exploit 
 to celebrate. The most dramatic event of the eleventh 
 century, the Norman conquest of Sicily, was an achieve- 
 ment of the French race and celebrated in the French 
 and Latin languages. The revolt of the Lombard 
 towns, and the naval enterprises of Pisa and of Genoa 
 produced here and there some %dgorous writing, but 
 all of it in Latin. The Italian panegyrists of the 
 emperor presumably knew no German. Their own 
 language was fluid and unformed ; their expected re- 
 ward was a benefice ; their minds were fashioned by 
 the Roman poets, and it was besides clearly appro- 
 priate to celebrate the Roman emperor in the academic 
 strains of Virgil or of Lucan. 
 
 There were two other languages which vied with 
 Latin, each of them connected with a special form 
 of literature, French and Provengal. The epic 
 cycle of Charles the Great and of Arthur came 
 to Italy in the flowing and delightful dialect of 
 Northern France, while the love lyrics and satires 
 of Provence spread the knowledge of the "more 
 perfect and sweeter speech " of the south. ^ There was 
 for a time some danger that the common language 
 of the Italian people would never force its way 
 into literature against its three formidable rivals. 
 Latin was the language of the schools, of public 
 
 ■■ Dante, Be Vulgari Eloquio, i., c. x., " AUegat ergo pro se lingua oil, 
 quod propter sui faciliorem ac delectabiliorem vulgaritatem, quicquid 
 redaotum sive inventum est ad vulgare prosaicum suum est ... Pro 
 se argumentatur alia, scilicet oc, quod vulgares eloquentes in ea primitus 
 poetati sunt, tanquam in perfectiori dulciorique loquela." 
 
CHAP, xiv] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 267 
 
 harangues, of official documents, of polite letter writing, 
 of town chronicles, even of sermons until the days 
 of St. Francis.-' French was the vehicle of the only 
 medieval saga which the whole people of Italy 
 could appropriate to themselves, while the delicate 
 and intricate workmanship of Provencal poetry, with 
 its curious and gracious artificialities of rhythm and 
 diction and thought, for a long time satisfied the 
 artistic craving for technical perfection. Throughout the 
 whole of the thirteenth century the Langue d'Oil held 
 its own in Northern Italy. The epic cycle of Charles 
 the Great was cast into a language which was still 
 mainly French, though it was partially affected by the 
 Italian dialects of the north-east. Forgotten Italian 
 poets added to the cycle the Entry to Spain and the 
 Capture of Barcelona. The Carolingian and Arthurian 
 epics had come into Sicily with the Normans, and 
 it is thought that Aliscans, undoubtedly the finest poem 
 in the Langue d'Oil after the Clianson de Roland, 
 was written in that island.^ The first great Venetian 
 chronicler, Martin da Canale, who must have died soon 
 after 1275, used the French language because, as he 
 said, " Lengue franceise cort parmi le monde et est 
 
 ' The long Latin poem written by Peter de la Vigne against the political 
 monks who make their profit out of the struggle between the empire and 
 the papacy was clearly intended for general publication, and shows 
 that Latin was still widely understood (Du M6ril, Poesies populaires du 
 moyen age, pp. 163-77). Florentine ladies, on the other hand, could not 
 make much of verses written to them in that language half a century 
 later (Dante, Vita Nuova, 25 ; cf. Gaspary, p. 21). There was, however, 
 a certain amount of letter writing done in the vernacular, as is clear 
 from the Doctrina ad inveniendas, incipiendas ac formandas materias 
 composed by Guido Faba or Fava about 1229 in Bologna, which includes 
 some letters in the Bolognese dialect, influenced, however, by Provencal 
 {Quellen zur hayrisclien und deutschen Oeschichte, i. ix., and Monaci 
 Crestomazia, vol. i., pp. 32-4). 
 
 ^Gaston Paris, La Sicile dans la Litteralure Fra7igaUe, Romania, 
 vol. V. 
 
268 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part ii 
 
 la plus delitable a lire et a oir que nul autre." The 
 Tresor of Brunetto Latini — the most popular of 
 encyclopedias — was formed upon a French model and 
 written in the French language. French leapt to 
 the lips of St. Francis as he carolled to his rough and 
 extemporized viol. It was the language in which 
 Eusticianus of Pisa wrote the travels of Marco Polo, the 
 language in which Dante read the tales of Charles 
 and of Arthur and of the Trojans.'- 
 
 The Langue d'Oc was perhaps less popular, but it 
 exercised a more definite and incisive influence upon art, 
 just because it appealed to a narrower and a more 
 scholarly circle. The wide influence of the Provengal 
 lyric was due to the fact that it provided an artistic 
 mould for the genuine expression of a personal senti- 
 ment. It was through this delicate instrument that the 
 human heart first outpoured its passion in the j\Iiddle 
 Ages, melting the long frost of Latinity. In the Latin 
 countries, and especially in Italy, its victory was almost 
 instantaneous. In the twelfth century clusters of Pro- 
 venjal poets gathered round the small northern courts 
 of the Margraves of Montferrat and of Este. Some of 
 them eagerly threw themselves into Italian politics, 
 as Pier A-'idal, who sided with the Pisans against the 
 Genoese, and Piere de la Caravana, who incited the 
 Lombards against Henry VI. in 1195. And then came 
 the exiles of the Albigensian crusade. Scarcely a road 
 in Italy but must have been traversed by one of these 
 troubadours, bringing with him a store of song, which 
 must have seemed to those who heard it a new revela- 
 tion of human power. St. Francis dreamt of sending 
 
 1 De Vulg. Eloq., i. x. The last surviving specimen of this Franco- 
 Italian literature is the Aquilon of Bavaria, a prose piece by Eafaele 
 Marmora [probably a Veronese], 1379-1407. 
 
CHAP, xiv] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 269 
 
 out a legion of spiritual troubadours — joculatores 
 Domini — who should chant men into righteousness.^ 
 Italians such as Sordello of Mantua and Albert of Male- 
 spina wrote only in the Provencal tongue, and one of 
 the chief Provenjal grammars, the Donatz Provensal, 
 was composed in Italy, dedicated to two Italians, and 
 intended for Italian use. Long after Sicilian poetry 
 had made its way, men continued to study Provengal 
 models, and to throw off now and again a sonnet in the 
 Langue d'Oc.^ Dante, when commenting upon the laws 
 of verse, uses indifferently illustrations from the poetry 
 of both lands, and the famous Provencal trovatore 
 Arnaut Daniel, meeting the poet in Purgatory, speaks 
 eight lines in his native tongue before he is hidden to 
 view in the refining flames.^ 
 
 The vernacular lyric springs from Frederick's court 
 of Palermo,* but the mere fact that lyrics were here 
 first written in the native tongue would not necessarily 
 
 ' Sabatier, Vie de St. Frangois d' Assise, p. 89 ; and cf. Eiccardus da 
 San Oermano ad 1233, "Bodem mense quidam frater J. vili contectus 
 tegmine tanquam de ordine fratrum minorum ad Sanctum Germanum 
 veniens cum cornu quodam convocabat populum et alta voce cantabat 
 tertio Alleluja, et omnes respondebant AUeluja et ipse consequenter 
 dicebat : 
 
 ' Benedictu laudatu et glorificatu lu Patre 
 benedictu laudatu et glorificatu lu Fillu 
 benedictu laudatu et glorificatu lu Spiritu sanctu. 
 Alleluja gloriosa Donna ; ' 
 hoc idem alta voce respondentibus pueris qui erant praesentes." 
 
 ^This was specially the case in North Italy, where Provenjal even 
 outlived the Sicilian school. Bartolomeo Zorgi was writing aJEter the 
 death of Conradin. For the whole subject of Provengal influence, cf. 
 Gaspary, Die Sicilianische Dichterschule. 
 
 3jDe Vulg. Eloq., ii. 6, 10, 13 ; Purg., xxvi., 136 ff. 
 
 * Probably the earliest known specimens of Italian vernacular verse 
 is the Contralto of the Provengal Bambaut de la Vaqueiras before 1202 
 [ed. Monaci, Crestomazia ItaliaTia, vol. i., n. 11]. A Tuscan cantilena \ih. 
 n. 7] may be still earlier. But there is no general Italian literature 
 till the literature of the Sicilian school proper. 
 
270 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part H 
 
 have been of decisive importance. An outburst of 
 Sicilian patois, however passionate and musical, would 
 never have crossed the straights of j\Iessina. The 
 emperor's court saved the Sicilian lyrics from this fate. 
 It was full of Provencals and of Apulians ; it travelled 
 up and down Italy ; it was interested in classical litera- 
 ture, and steeped in a spirit of universal curiosity which 
 was as favourable to the development of poetic technique 
 as it was fatal to the growth of native lyrical feeling. 
 
 The poetry of the Silician court was written in a 
 dialect which was remarkably free from insular pro- 
 vincialisms, and scholars debate the question as to 
 whether we now have it in the language in which it was 
 originally composed, or whether it was subsequently 
 transliterated into a dialect of the Tuscan type. It is, 
 however, unlikely that a Sicilian patois would have been 
 tolerated at the imperial court, which was the centre of 
 so many streams of culture, German and Provenjal, 
 French and Arabic. The court too travelled with the 
 emperor, who frequently voyaged through every part of 
 Italy, and a compliment paid by King Enzio to the 
 " cortesia " of Tuscany would seem to indicate that the 
 refinements of life were there specially appreciated. 
 The poetry too of the Sicilian school is on the whole 
 shallow and conventional, for it was the product of an 
 aristocratic society, and closely set in the Provenjal 
 mould. -^ The forlorn lover is like the swan singing its 
 last song, or the turtle dove who has lost its mate. 
 The flame of love is as proven gold. A smile from the 
 beloved is better than paradise. She is a rose, a lily, a 
 
 ^The charming Contrasto of Cielo dal Camo [Monaci, vol. i., No. 46] 
 is an exception. It has been translated by Eossetti in his Circle of 
 Dante. For other unconventional poems of the Sicilian school, cf. 
 Graspary, Die Sicilianische Dichterschide, pp. 114-116. 
 
CHAP. XIV] THE EMPIRE AND CULTURE 271 
 
 star, a mirror of womanhood. She is a basilisk who 
 slays with her eyes, and he a salamander living in a 
 perpetual fire of love. If he could only serve God as he 
 serves her, then assuredly God would put him into 
 heaven. These are the commonplaces of medieval love- 
 poetry, and they pervade this literature. But it is form 
 which preserves. Without this saving and most portable 
 gift these Sicilian echoes from Provence might have 
 fainted away among the towns of Northern Italy. The 
 Sicilian poetry was in fact rescued by its very defici- 
 encies in realism and local colour. In the hands of the 
 Tuscan poets its metres were improved and new life was 
 infused into the mould. The powerful stimulus given 
 to Aristotelian studies by Frederick II. led to a kind 
 of philosophical or spiritual conception of love, while 
 the exciting politics of the Tuscan towns edged the 
 sirvente with a new reality and bitterness. 
 
 " Barons of Lombardy and Eome and Apulia, 
 And Tuscans and Eomagnese and men of the March, 
 Florence the flower which renews itself 
 Call you to her court. 
 
 For she wishes to make herself King of the Tuscans 
 Now that she has conquered the Germans and the Siennese 
 by force." 
 
 So sung Guittone d'Arezzo after the Florentine victory 
 at Monteaperto in 1260, with all his rough vigour.^ 
 On the other side Guido Guinicelli, from the learned 
 city of Bologna, mingled a kind of deep and religious 
 spirituality with his ardent passion, such as at times 
 
 'Monaci, vol. i., p. 182. For the Pisan political poems against the 
 tyranny of Ugolino, cf. Gaspary, Die Sicilianische Dichterschtde, pp. 21-2. 
 In the Vatican MS. 3793 there are a number of Florentine political 
 sonnets, some of which have been printed by Trucchi, i., p. 182, and 
 others by Cherrier, La lutte de la Papaute et de les Empereurs de la 
 Maison de Suabe, vol. iv., p. 527 S. ; Gaspary, pp. 22-3. 
 
272 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [pt. ii, ch. xiv. 
 
 even suggests comparison with Donne. He is the 
 founder of the dolce styl nuovo,^ whom Dante salutes 
 as his father and the father of his betters "in the sweet 
 and light rhymes of love." 
 
 " The fire of Love comes to the gentle heart 
 Like as its virtue to a precious stone ; 
 To which no star its influence can impart 
 Till it is made a pure thing by the sun : 
 
 For when the sun hath smit 
 From out its essence that which there was vile, 
 
 The star endoweth it. 
 And so the heart created by God's breath 
 
 Pure, true, and clean from guile, 
 A woman like a star enamoureth."^ 
 
 Out of this Tuscan poetry which was called Sicilian, 
 with its varied appeals to love, philosophy and political 
 passion, sprang the first written specimens of literary 
 Italian prose. ^ It also made possible the Divine 
 Comedy. From the intellectual fermentation of the 
 thirteenth century, in which the court of the Swabian 
 emperor played so great a part, sprang the architec- 
 tonic genius of Dante, the most complete literary 
 witness to the passion and the thought, the memories 
 and the hopes, which were stored up in the conception 
 of the Medieval Empire. 
 
 1 For the contrast between the Sicilian school, represented by Jacopo 
 da Lentini and Guittone d'Arezzo, and the later school, represented by 
 Guinioelli and Cavalcante, cf. Purg., xxiv. 15. 
 
 ^Tr. Eossetti. 'Dante, Be Vulgari Eloquio, ii. 1. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The history of the Medieval Empire has, as we have 
 seen, been fertile in contrasts. By a strange freak of 
 fortune the title and tradition of the Caesars passes 
 to the latest barbarian arrival within the circle of the 
 civilized nations of the west. The Saxon king of a 
 rude race of peasants is required to conserve and to 
 appreciate a conception of government moulded by the 
 genius of the Latin races in a climate of Eoman law 
 and Eoman religion, and saturated with the spirit of 
 Roman autocracy, that last and most refined distillation 
 of the aristocratic pride of a great city. A barbarian, 
 living in a condition of affable equality with his fellow- 
 tribesmen, is asked to posture as the descendant of 
 Augustus, the masterful and subtle, as the co-equal 
 of those Greek rulers, for whose elaborate court Con- 
 stantino Porphyrogenitus wrote his massive and curious 
 book upon ceremonies. Yet the difference between the 
 courts of Constantinople and Tribur was as great as 
 that between the court of Versailles, as it was known 
 to the Due de Luynes, and the highland home of Fergus 
 M'lvor, as Sir Walter Scott describes it in Waverley ; 
 and the idea of the Roman Empire, as it was printed 
 upon the Saxon brain of the tenth century, no more 
 reflects the ancient classical conception than the Venus 
 
 VOL. II. s 
 
274 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part 
 
 of Botticelli in the Uffizi Gallery renders the spirit 
 of ancient Hellenic art. 
 
 By degrees, however, the implications of an idea 
 of which the Teuton sovereigns originally had only 
 apprehended the outward symbols penetrate the minds 
 of men. The revival of classical studies in the 
 twelfth century and the increased contact with 
 Italy revealed some portions of ancient history in 
 a clearer outline, and set the later monarchs of the 
 Hohenstauffen house to dream of autocracy and universal 
 dominion. But the functions of an emperor, as they 
 were understood in antiquity, postulated an economic 
 structure wholly different from that which prevailed 
 in Germany. The Roman Empire of antiquity was 
 a federation of towns ; the Eoman Empire of the 
 Middle Ages was composed of a loose union between 
 a land of independent communes and a land of isolated 
 self-suj93.cing rural homesteads. All the engines of 
 autocracy are wanting in this rural state. There is 
 little use of money, and therefore there can be no 
 large surplus. There is little traffic or movement of 
 any kind, and therefore the will of the monarch is 
 but feebly felt. The law of these simple communities 
 is homely and home-made, and therefore the autocrat's 
 legislation is unneeded. The weak armour of offence 
 is no match for the stout walls of the castle. The 
 undrilled, undisciplined population jealously guards its 
 customs, its honour, its personal freedom. To vitalize 
 this huge disjointed rural state and bind it together 
 into a civilized polity must necessarily be the work 
 of many generations. But there are two agencies 
 ready to effect it. There is the Church with its strong 
 Eoman tradition of discipline, and there is the native 
 monarchy which is the creation of military needs. 
 
II] CONCLUSION 275 
 
 The slow and steady co-operation of these two forces 
 eventually built up Spain and France and England. 
 In Germany too there was co-operation between the 
 spiritual and secular powers, more close, more intimate, 
 and more prolonged than in any other realm in the 
 continent, except the eastern empire. Yet the Church, 
 which was in one sense the buttress of the German 
 monarchy, was in another sense its ruin, for, being 
 the sole depositary of the imperial idea, it favoured 
 the revival and continuance of the Eoman Empire. 
 It could not explain to the barbarians what this 
 meant, for the clear significance of the thing was 
 utterly lost, and only to be recovered by deep 
 study. But it tempted them with brilliant symbols, 
 and they deserted the homely task of governing 
 German tribes for impossible schemes of Italian con- 
 quest. This brought the rulers of the peasant society 
 into contact with two strange things, the Pope of 
 Eome and the civilization of Italy. Neither the 
 one nor the other was fully intelligible to them. 
 The Pope was the ruler of the real living Roman 
 Empire, of the Catholic Church, which was spread 
 through the western world, which had inherited the 
 spirit and which was organized upon the model of 
 the ancient Eoman state. The civilization of Italy 
 was municipal. Otto I. challenged a pope to a duel, 
 Frederick Barbarossa savagely destroyed Milan. Both 
 laboured under a misapprehension, for the conquest 
 of Italy could never be effected by such means. Yet 
 the rulers of the peasant state had something to give 
 to the land of cities ; their presence for a moment 
 checked disorder, and, winged as they were iu their 
 southern pilgrimages by ecclesiastical ideas, they 
 promoted able and vigorous men to fill that papal 
 
276 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part 
 
 office, the true significance of wliich they did not 
 understand. Yet since there was nothing in the 
 economic condition of Germany which could teach 
 them the art of government, their visits to Italy were 
 little better than raids. It was only by degrees that the 
 German world learnt its Latin lesson, and then it was 
 too late to put it into practice. The towns had shaken 
 themselves free of bishops and nobles ; the Church 
 was penetrated by papal ideas, and the constitution 
 of Germany had fallen by a natural and unconscious 
 process into a council of territorial princes. Barbarossa, 
 who began to realize the Eoman character of the 
 empire, is bound to acknowledge that in Germany 
 nothing can be done without the consent of the princes. 
 Henry VI. is ready to consecrate the autonomy of the 
 magnates who have gro]^n up under the shadow of 
 a careless rule. Frederick II. actually does so. But 
 the ironical contrast between theory and practice, idea 
 / and actuality, still pursues the Medieval Empire. The 
 first emperor who had perfectly learnt the Latin lesson 
 wrecks his dynasty by very adeptness. Surrounded 
 by Eoman lawyers, steeped in ancient culture, educated 
 in a land of beautiful and magnificent cities, inheritor 
 of a strong and well-compacted realm, Frederick 11. 
 first realized what government should really mean, 
 what the Eoman Empire really meant. But to apply 
 this theory of the empire to practical politics was to 
 create a revolution. It meant the destruction of the 
 temporal power of the papacy, the undoing of the 
 work of Gregory I. "The ghost of the Caesars" 
 rose up against the Sicilian monarch and destroyed 
 him, for the existence of the medieval papacy was 
 incompatible with so literal a transcript of classical 
 ideas. The attempt to realize a conception of the 
 
II] CONCLUSION 277 
 
 empire ruined the political unity of Italy and 
 Germany. 
 
 It may be urged in reply that ideals are worth 
 pursuing whithersoever they may lead, and that what 
 Germany and Italy lost in the field of politics they 
 gained in culture and civility. It may be urged that 
 it was something to keep alive the idea of a common 
 polity of the most progressive nations of the world, 
 and to infuse the highest known morality into the con- 
 ceptions of kingship. The struggle between the empire 
 and the papacy produced, it is true, many physical 
 disasters, and a large crop of fantastic controversy. 
 But although the modern politician will rightly despise 
 the application of analogies from the heavenly bodies 
 to decide the relative position of earthly dignitaries, 
 he must remember that this controversy first lit the 
 flames of political debate in the west, and that sparks 
 from that fire have been burning ever since. The idea 
 of the contractual theory of monarchy on the one hand, 
 and of the divine right of kings on the other, springs 
 from these obscure ecclesiastical tracts which were 
 written during the controversy between Gregory VII. 
 and Henry IV. The question of the relation between 
 Church and State was one which was unknown to 
 antiquity and unknown to Byzantium. But it was 
 raised throughout Latin Christendom in every living 
 between patron and incumbent, in every country be- 
 tween king and clergy, and lastly in a most conspicuous 
 way in the struggle between the empire and the 
 papacy. It was round this, the most conspicuous, 
 struggle that the political literature of Western Europe 
 was gathered. 
 
 The apologist of the empire might also urge that 
 the Germans have saved the individuality of Italy by 
 
278 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE [part 
 
 the very fact that they have so little in common with 
 the Italian genius. It was far better for Italy to look to 
 an alien and unsympathetic people for political guidance 
 than to be thrown for help upon the cognate civilization 
 of France. As it was, Italy during the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries narrowly risked falling into that 
 intellectual bondage to France which seems to be afflict- 
 ing her at the present time. If political control had 
 been added to the numerous commercial and intellectual 
 ties which bound her to the western kingdom, would 
 the individuality of the Italian genius have ever asserted 
 itself 1 Eoman law. Teuton domination and the Sicilian 
 court won for the country intellectual independence. 
 By the time that Charles of Valois was established in 
 the Norman kingdom, a new and lovely instrument of 
 speech had been crystallized by half a century of ver- 
 nacular poetry. 
 
 It may be replied that the mutual influence of 
 German and Italian civilization was far slighter during 
 the imperial age than it subsequently became ; that 
 the revival of the empire effectually prevented the 
 formation of an Italian kingdom, which was not an 
 impossibility at the end of the tenth or during the 
 first half of the eleventh century, and that political 
 union would have promoted the individuality of the 
 Italian genius. It cannot be denied that the empire 
 ruined the political prospects of Germany ; that it may 
 have degraded the German Church ; that it arrested 
 the progress of German law ; stereotyped anarchy and 
 private warfare ; and prepared the humiliations of 
 Westphalia and Lundville. There can be no more 
 striking commentary upon the statement that history 
 is the biography of great men. Here was a line of 
 rulers extending over a period of three hundred years, 
 
II] CONCLUSION 279 
 
 all of them active and zealous, some of them judicious 
 and sensible, some of them imaginative and enthusi- 
 astic, one of them a man of genius. They were all 
 governed by a single idea, a single tradition, which 
 became bigger to them and more full of meaning as 
 time revealed the outlines of antiquity. It governed 
 them and it ruined them, for the spirit and the 
 economics of German society were incompatible with 
 autocracy, and the inheritance of the Latin Empire 
 had passed to the Catholic Church and to its chieftain, 
 the Pope. 
 
28o 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
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282 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 [part 
 
 THE DUKES OF SWABIA. 
 
 Burkhard I., - 
 
 917-926 
 
 Ernest 11. of Babenberg, - 
 
 1015-1027 
 
 Hermann I., - 
 
 926-948 
 
 Hermann IV. of Baben- 
 
 
 Liudolf of Saxony,! . 
 
 949-954 
 
 berg, 
 
 1030-1038 
 
 Burkhard 11. ,2 
 
 954-973 
 
 Henry I., the Black, of 
 
 
 Otto I. of Saxony, - 
 
 973-982 
 
 Franconia, 
 
 1038-1045 
 
 Conrad I.,2 - 
 
 983-997 
 
 Otto II. ,« 
 
 1045-1047 
 
 Hermann II. ,' - 
 
 997-1003 
 
 Otto III. of Schweinfurt,' 
 
 1048-1057 
 
 Hermann III.,^ 
 
 1003-1012 
 
 Rudolph of Rheinfelden,^ 
 
 1057-1079 
 
 Ernest I. of Babenberg,^ - 
 
 1012-1015 
 
 HOHENSTAUI 
 
 Berchtold of Bheinfelden, 
 "FEN Dukes. 
 
 1079-1090 
 
 Frederick I. , - 
 
 1079-1105 
 
 Philip, ... - 
 
 1196-1208 
 
 Frederick II., - 
 
 1105-1147 
 
 Frederick VI., 
 
 1212-1216 
 
 Frederick III. (Barbarossa) 
 
 1147-1152 
 
 Henry n.. 
 
 1216-1235 
 
 Frederick IV., 
 
 1152-1167 
 
 Conrad III., - 
 
 1235-1254 
 
 Frederick v., - - - 1167-1191 Conrad IV. or Conradin, - 1254-1268 
 Conrad II., - - - 1192-1196 
 
 After the death of Conrad IV. the ducal dynasty disappears, and imperial 
 governors are placed in Upper and Lower Swabia. Towards the end of the 
 thirteenth century the Counts of Wurtemberg became governors of Lower 
 Swabia. 
 
 THE DUKES OF BAVARIA. 
 
 Dukes. 
 
 Arnulf, the Bad, 
 
 911-914 
 
 Conrad I. of Franconia, - 
 
 914-918 
 
 Arnulf (returns). 
 
 919-937 
 
 Eberhard, 
 
 937-938 
 
 Berchtold, 
 
 938-947 
 
 Henry I. , the Quarrelsome 
 
 
 {Saxon),8 - 
 
 947-955 
 
 Henry II. , the Pacific (Saxon) 
 
 , 955-976 
 
 Otto I. (Saxon), 
 
 976-982 
 
 Henry III., tlie Young, - 
 
 983-985 
 
 Henry II. (returns), 
 
 985-995 
 
 Henry IV. (Saxon), i» - 995-1004 
 
 Henry V. of Luxemburg, 1004-1009 
 
 Henry IV. (returns), - 1009-1018 
 
 Henry V. (returns), - 1018-1026 
 
 Conrad II. of Franconia," 1026-1027 
 Henry VI., the Black, of 
 
 Franoonia,i2 . . 1027-1042 
 
 Henry VII. of Luxemburg, 1042-1047 
 
 Henry VI. (returns), - 1047-1049 
 
 Conrad IIL of Zutphen, - 1049-1053 
 
 Henry VIII. of Franconia, 1053- 1054 
 
 ' Son of Otto I. =Ida, d. of Hermann I. 
 
 ^Nephews of Hermann I. ^ Son of Conrad I. 
 
 ^ Son of Hermann II. ^ = Sister of Hermann III. 
 
 * Descended from a daughter of Emperor Otto II. 
 
 ' Second cousin of Ernest II. ^ Nephew by marriage of Ernest II. 
 
 * Brother of Otto I. !° Afterwards Emperor Henry II. 
 " Emperor. '* Emperor Henry III. 
 
"] 
 
 DUKES OF BAVARIA 
 
 283 
 
 Agnes of Poitiers,' - - 1055-1061 
 
 Otto II. of Nordheim, - 1061-1070 
 
 Welf I. of Este, - - 1070-1077 
 
 Henry VIH. (returns), - 1077-1096 
 
 Welf I. (returns), - - 1096-1101 
 
 Welf n. of Este, - - 1101-1120 
 
 Henry IV., the Black, of 
 
 Este, - - - 1120-1126 
 
 Henry X., the Proud, of 
 
 Este, - - - 1126-1138 
 
 Leopold of Austria, - - 1138-1141 
 
 ConradV.ofHohenstauffen, 1141-1143 
 
 Henry XI. of Austria, - 1143-1156 
 Henry XII. , the Lion, of 
 
 Este, - - - 1156-1180 
 
 Otto I., the Great, - 
 Lewis I. of Kelheim, 
 Otto II. , the Illustrious, - 
 Lewis II., the Severe, \ 
 Henry I., - -J 
 
 House of Wittelseach. 
 
 Upper Bavakia. 
 Lewis n., the Severe, - 1255-1294 
 
 1180-1183 
 1183-1231 
 1231-1253 
 
 1253-1255 
 
 Henry I.. 
 
 ' Widow of Henry III. 
 
 Lower Bavaria. 
 
 1255-1290 
 
EEEATA. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 p. 32, 1. 24. For Pascal read Stephen. 
 
 p. 34, 1. 14. For Henry IV. read Henry I. 
 
 p. 36, 1. 2. For Bold read Bald. 
 
 p. 44, 1. 15. For Ivrea read Frivdi, 
 
 p. 99, L 10. For Lothar read Lothair. 
 
 p. 134, 1. 26. For niece read daughter. 
 
 p. 183, m 3. L 3. For Cont read Count. 
 
 p. 241, 1. 20. For Bertolf read Bertold. 
 
 p. 267, 1. 27. For Lewis XIX. read Lewis XIV. 
 
 p. 289, 1. 22. For Easke read Raspe. 
 
 p. 291, 1. 19. For Henry IV. read Henry I. 
 
 p. 339, 1. 18. For Ekbert read Eokbert. 
 
 EEEATA. 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
 p. 21, L 4. For Pribislav of Bohemia read Pribislaw of Brandenburg. 
 
 p. 163, m 1, L 1. For partition read petition. 
 
 p. 181, 1. 11. For Civita-nova read Civita-nuova. 
 
 p. 189, 1. 8. For immoral read immortal. 
 
 p. 258, L 22. For Lothair II. read Lothair L 
 
 The author wishes to apologise heartily to his readers for some incon- 
 sistencies in the orthography of proper names which escaped his notice 
 until it was too late to correct them. His object has been to give the 
 proper names in the forms which are most familiar to English readers. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abailard, ii. 262 m. 
 Abenberg, Count of, i. 77. 
 Abodrites, i. 90, 105 »; ii. 2, 8, 10, 
 
 16, 17, 18. 
 Abraham, i. 15. 
 Abnizzi, ii. 251. 
 Acht, The King's, i. 190. 
 Acquapendente, ii. 216. 
 Adalbero of Carinthia, i. 239. 
 Adalbero of Trfeves, ii. 80, 84. 
 Adalbert of Bremen, i. 92, 105, 107, 
 
 108, 111; ii. 84, 97, 97 ». 
 Adalbert, Margrave of Austria, ii. 
 
 29, 30. 
 Adalbert of Prussia, ii. 83. 
 Adalbert of Salzburg, ii. 37 n. 
 Adaldag of Hamburg, ii. 84. 
 Adam of Bremen, i. 77 ; ii. 4, 83. 
 Adela of Weimar, i. 317. 
 Adelgisus of Milan, ii. 232. 
 Adelheid, i. 43. 
 Adelheid of Turin, ii. 150. 
 Admont, Abbey of, ii. 38 n. 
 Adolph of Cologne, i. 330 ; ii. 84, 127. 
 Adolph of Schauenberg, i. 144, 336 ; 
 
 ii. 16, 18. 
 Advocates, i. 319-322 ; ii. 49, 50, 231. 
 Adzo, i. 41. 
 Agapitus II., i. 43, 44. 
 Agathias, i. 19. 
 AgUofings, i. 60, 61, 63. 
 Aglei, ii. 121. 
 
 Agnes of Poitou, ii. 90, 97, 206. 
 Agnes of Stauflfen, i. 325, 328. 
 Agobard of Lyons, i. 158, 164. 
 Ahasuerus, i. 339. 
 
 Aix or Aachen, i. 25, 30, 42, 54, 74, 
 100, 221, 225, 269, 283 », 291 ; ii. 2, 
 53, 160, 171. 
 
 Alamann, Derivation of, i. 69m. 
 
 Alamanni, i. 58, 68, 69, 70. 
 
 Alamannia, i. 264. 
 
 Alamannorwn Lex, i. 62, 68, 100 n. 
 
 Alario I., 17 ; II., 262. 
 
 Alaric, Breviary of, i. 100 n. 
 
 Albano, ii. 226. 
 
 Alberic, i. 44, 45. 
 
 Alberic da Romano, ii. 249. 
 
 Albert of Anhalt, i. 143. 
 
 Albert of Ballenstadt [the Bear], i. 
 139, 141, 142, 143, 318, 330, 332, 
 340, 341 n ; ii. 7, 13, 20, 21. 
 
 Albert of Bohemia, ii. 132. 
 
 Albert of Cologne, ii. 263. 
 
 Albert of Hohenlohe, i. 263 n. 
 
 Albert of Malespina, ii. 269. 
 
 Albertus Magnus, ii. 83, 85. 
 
 Albigensian Crusade, ii. 263, 268. 
 
 Alboin, i. 61, 150. 
 
 Alcuin, i. 27?!. 
 
 Aledramides, The, ii. 150 m. 
 
 Alexander, i. 15, 26. 
 
 Alexander II., ii. 99, 208, 210. 
 
 Alexander III., i. 141, 154, 332; ii. 
 59, 104, 105, 113, 117, 119, 221, 222. 
 
 Alexander IV. , ii. 62. 
 
 Alexandria, ii. 175. 
 
 Alexius, i. 153. 
 
 Alfanus, ii. 260. 
 
 Aliscans, ii. 267. 
 
 AUer, ii. 8. 
 
 Akneric of Farfa, ii. 257. 
 
286 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Alphonse of Castile, i. 220, 225 ; ii. 
 
 135. 
 Alsace, i. 69, 71, 152, 202, 263, 267, 
 
 314. 
 Altdorf, i. 173 n. 
 
 Altenburg, Bargraviate of, i. 263. 
 Alttn vom Thiergarten, Die, i. 287. 
 Altmann of Passau, ii. 31, 101. 
 Altmark, ii. 3. 
 Amalfi, ii. 188, 189. 
 Amatus, ii. 260. 
 Anaoletus II., ii. 215. 
 ABagni, Treaty of, ii. 216, 224. 
 AiiELstasius IV., ii. 70. 
 Anoona, ii. 59, 121, 230, 239, 241, 242, 
 
 244, 249, 250, 254, 265 n. 
 Andemach, ii. 238. 
 Andrea of Isernia, ii. 191. 
 Angers, i. 82. 
 Angles, i. 52, 73, 145, 333. 
 Angoul^me, ii. 86. 
 Anhalt, i. 235. 
 Anjou, i. 243 m. 
 Anno II. of Cologne, i. 108, 188 ; ii. 
 
 99, 233. 
 Anno Lied, The, i. 48 n. 
 Anschar, St., i. 93 ; ii. 83. 
 Anselm, Count, i. 337. 
 Anaelm of Aosta, i. 71 ; ii. 259. 
 Anselm of Kunigsberg, ii. 2-tl. 
 Anselm of Lucca, ii. 205 n, 208, 209. 
 Anselm the Peripatetic, ii. 256, 257 n. 
 Ansfrid of Lorraine, i. 313. 
 Anspert of Milan, i. 34. 
 Antenor, ii. 259. 
 Antichrist, i. 15, 41. 
 Antioch, ii. 117. 
 Antonine Emperors, L 259. 
 Antmstions, i. 333. 
 Antwerp, i. 280. 
 Aosta, ii. 259. 
 Apulia, i. 153; ii. 98, 116, 138, 178, 
 
 188, 271. 
 Apulians, ii. 251, 270. 
 Aquileia, i. 63 ; ii. 45, 153. 
 Aquilon of Bavaria, The, ii. 268 7i. 
 Aquinas, Thomas, ii. 83. 
 Aqultaine, i. 27, 71 ; ii. 151. 
 Archchancellor of Aries, ii. 233 n. 
 
 Archchancellor of Germany, ii. 233. 
 Archchancellor of Italy, ii. 233. 
 Arduin of Ivrea, ii. 150, 256. 
 Aribert, ii. 150, 152, 153, 154. 
 Aribo of Mainz, ii. 95, 96. 
 Aribones, The, i. 324 n. 
 Arichia of Beneventum, ii. 263. 
 Ariprand, ii. 155. 
 Aristotle, i. 13, 42 ; ii. 263, 264. 
 Aries, ii. 160, 200. 
 Armenia, i. 56. 
 Arminius, i. 48, 50. 
 Army, i. 216, 217. 
 Arnold of Brescia, ii. 103, 218. 
 Arnold of Liibeck, ii. 108 n. 
 Arnold, servant of Henry III., i. 106. 
 Amulf, Duke of Bavaria, i. 66, 95, 
 140, 326, 335. 
 
 Amulf of Cologne, i. 285. 
 Amnlf of Milan, ii. 231. 
 
 Amulf the Emperor, i. 64 n, 71, 90, 
 
 91, 268, 271 ; ii. 65, 112 n, 139. 
 Arragon, Kingdom of, i. 311. 
 Arragon kings in Sicily, ii. 200. 
 Arrigo Testa d'Arezzo, ii. 265 n. 
 Arthur, ii. 266, 268. 
 Arthurian Epics, i. 333. 
 Ascanians, ii. 21 n. 
 Aschaffenburg, i. 278 n. 
 
 Asia Minor, Imperial estates in, i. 
 259. 
 
 Asinius Qnadratus, i. 68. 
 
 Assyrian Empire, i. 15. 
 
 Astaldi, The, ii. 217. 
 
 Asti, ii. 232, 242, 243, 246 n. 
 
 Ataulph, i. 25. 
 
 Athelstan, i. 90. 
 
 AttUa, i. 49, 53, 58, 72. 
 
 Augsburg, i. 175, 187, 259, 268, 288, 
 
 298; ii. 102 n. 
 AugiistaXes, ii. 189. 
 Augustine, i. 19, 38 ; ii. 141, 161. 
 Augustus, i. 191 ; ii. 273. 
 Austrasia, i. 70. 
 Austria, Duchy of, i. 247, 249, 269, 
 
 296, 297, 314, 315, 330 ; ii. 25-54. 
 Austrian Landrecht, i. 146, 180; ii. 
 
 42 m, 45, 46, 50, 51, 52. 
 Ava of Hungary, ii. 30. 
 
INDEX 
 
 287 
 
 Avars, i. 61, 71, 
 
 Aventine, ii. 202, 203, 215. 
 
 Averroes, ii. 261, 264. 
 
 Avitus, i. 24. 
 
 Azo of Bologna, ii. 165. 
 
 Azzo, father of Welf I., i. 110. 
 
 Azzo II. of Este, ii. 150, 250, 262. 
 
 Azzo of Milan, ii. 232. 
 
 Babenbergs, i. 814 ; ii. 25-54. 
 
 Bacon, Roger, ii. 86 n. 
 
 Balderich of Lifege, ii. 
 
 Baldwin of Hainult, i. 241. 
 
 Ballei, Counts of, i. 332. 
 
 Ballenstadt, of. Albert of. 
 
 Bamberg, i. 46, 79, 80, 124, 142, 148, 
 
 200, 268, 269, 273, 278, 299, 321 ; 
 
 ii. 8, 44, 45, 65, 76, 94, 102 m. 
 Bwnleihe, i. 162. 
 Bannitio, i. 163, 164. 
 Bardo of Mainz, ii. 97. 
 Bardwick, ii. 20. 
 Bari, i. 154. 
 Barletta, ii. 194. 
 Basil, i. 40. 
 
 Basle, i. 72, 259, 288 ; ii. 76, 102n, 209. 
 Battle, Trial by, i. 187; u. 147, 187, 
 
 188. 
 Bavaria, i. 55 et seq., 119, 132 et seq., 
 
 140, 234, 260, 261, 264, 269, 273, 
 
 297, 298, 300, 302 n, 306, 309, 323, 
 
 330; ii. 35, 42, 44, 88, 98, 132. 
 Bavaria, Crown estates in, i. 261 71. 
 Bavaria, Dukes of, i. 145 ; ii. 28, 45, 
 
 48, 203. 
 Bavarian law, i. 62, 63, 145, 146. 
 Bayeux, i. 82. 
 
 Beatrice of Burgundy, i. 338. 
 Beatrice of Tuscany, ii. 205. 
 Beaufort, ii. 41. 
 Bede, cf . precaria. 
 Belisarius, i. 18, 160. 
 Bellarmine, ii. 57. 
 Benedictbeuern, i. 216, 298. 
 Benedict VIII., ii. 69, 94-97. 
 Benedict IX., ii 204. 
 Benedict X., ii. 206, 207. 
 Benedict of Soraete, i. 29 ; ii. 254. 
 Benevento, ii. 62, 139, 188, 207, 235. 
 Benno of Osnabriick, i. 112 ; ii. 83. 
 
 Beowulf, i. 83, 333. 
 
 Berchtesgaden, i. 298. 
 
 Berchtold I. of Swabia, i. 71. 
 
 Berengar of Friuli, ii. 59. 
 
 Berengar of Ivrea, i. 44, 45, 46. 
 
 Berengar of Salzbach, i. 326. 
 
 Bergamo, ii. 143, 162 n, 258. 
 
 Bern, i. 291. 
 
 Bernard the Ascanian, i. 142, 144. 
 
 Bernard, Saint, ii. 34. 
 
 Bernard, St., ii. 103, 114, 116, 118, 
 
 215, 26271. 
 Bernhard of Ratzeburg, ii. 17. 
 Bernhard of Saxony, i. 99, 104, 105 ; 
 
 ii. 7. 
 Bernhard II. of Saxony, i. 323 n, 336 ; 
 
 ii. 9. 
 Bemward of Hildesheim, i. 98 ; ii. 
 
 8, 83. 
 Bertha, d. of Henry V., ii. 214. 
 Bertinoro, ii. 105. 
 Bertold of the Nordgau, ii. 27. 
 Bertold II. of Swabia, i. 120, 127 m, 
 
 131, 134. 
 Bertold IV. of Zahringen, ii. 71, 241. 
 Billung, House of, i. 103, 132, 134, 
 
 135, 235, 323, 329 ; ii. 20. 
 Black Forest, i. 68, 131, 133. 
 Bohemia, i. 124, 129, 152, 224, 225, 
 
 226, 274; ii. 3, 9, 25, 38, 40, 42, 44, 
 
 47, 97. 
 Bohemia, Duke of, ii. 35 ; King of, 
 
 ii. 44, 45, 48. 
 Bohemian Forest, i. 141 ; ii. 48. 
 Bohemians, i. 71, 148. 
 Boii, i. 56. 
 
 Bolislav I. of Silesia, ii. 15. 
 Bolislav III. (Chabri) of Poland, ii. 
 
 8, 9, 11, 13. 
 Bologna, i. 150, 170, 192; ii. 92, 145, 
 
 161, 165, 175, 176, 244, 258, 271. 
 Boniface, St., i. 63, 84, 309. 
 Boniface of Tuscany, ii. 150, 204, 205. 
 Bonitho, ii. 205 ra. 
 Bonn, 1. 291. 
 Boppard, i. 273 n, 280. 
 Borgrecht, i. 243 re. 
 Boso, i. 34. 
 BotticelU, ii. 274. 
 Botzen, ii. 251. 
 Bouvines, i. 331, 332. 
 
288 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Brabant, i. 55. 
 Brabanters, ii. 14. 
 Brandenburg, Bishopric of, ii. 3. 
 Brandenburg, March of, i. 141, 235, 
 
 302 n ; ii. 6, 8, 11, 19, 21, 22, 54. 
 Brandenburg, Margrave of, i. 224, 
 
 225 ; ii. 5, 23, 48. 
 Braunschweigers, of. Brunswickers. 
 Bredingen, i. 123. 
 Bremen, i. 91, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 
 
 114, 135, 138, 141, 297 ; ii. 102 n, 
 
 V2A, 133. 
 Brenner, ii. 161, 250. 
 Brescia, i. 154 ; ii. 101, 175. 
 Breton custom in Sicily, ii. 104 n. 
 Bretons, i. 71. 
 Brindisi, i. 154. 
 Brisgavi, i. 68. 
 
 Brittany, Primogeniture in, i. 243 n. 
 Brunetto Latlni, ii. 268. 
 Bruno of Cologne, i. 42, 89, 90, 93 ; 
 
 ii. 126. 
 Bruno of Querfurt, i. 47. 
 Bruno, St., ii. 83. 
 Bruno, the Saxon historian, i. 122, 
 
 125, 132. 
 Brunos, The, i. 138, 317. 
 Brunswick, i. 142, 144, 235, 291, 313; 
 
 ii. 18, 20. 
 Brunswickers or Braunschweigers, i. 
 
 329. 
 Bucellarii, i. 333. 
 Bucinobantes, i. 68. 
 Buconian Forest, i. 76. 
 Buonoompagno, ii. 254. 
 Burchard, Duke of Swabia, i. 71, 96, 
 
 335. 
 Burchard of Halberstadt, i. 114, 115, 
 
 128, 129, 134. 
 Burchard of Ursperg, i. 174. 
 Burchard of Worms, i. 285; ii. 83, 
 
 85, 113. 
 Burdinus, ii. 215. 
 Burgdorf, i. 291. 
 Burghausen, i. 302 n. 
 Burgundian law, i. 235. 
 Burgundians, i. 69. 
 Burgundy, County of, i. 152. 
 Burgundy, Kingdom of, ii. 85. 
 Butler, A. J., ii. 260 m. 
 Byzantium, cf. Constantinople. 
 
 Cadalus of Parma, ii. 99, 209. 
 
 Caesar, i. 49. 
 
 Caesarius of Priim, i. 266. 
 
 Caiazzo, ii. 195. 
 
 Calabria, i. 153; ii. 185 re, 195 re. 
 
 Calabrians, ii. 145. 
 
 Calatrava, ii. 41. 
 
 CalixtusII., ii. 215. 
 
 Cambray, i. 174, 219, 236, 288 ; ii. 71. 
 
 Camerino, ii. 151 re. 
 
 Campagna, ii. 138, 203, 226, 235. 
 
 Campo Malo, ii. 153. 
 
 Cannstadt, i. 70. 
 
 Canonists in Germany, i. 184. 
 
 Canossa, i. 133. 
 
 Gapitulart de Villis, i. 259, 264. 
 
 Capitulare Saxonicum, i. 85, 87. 
 
 Capitularies, i. 156, 157. 
 
 Capitulatio de partibus Saxcmie, i. 85, 
 
 88. 
 Capture of Barcdona, The [Prise de 
 
 Baroelonne], ii. 267. 
 Caracalla, i. 68. 
 Cariuthia, i. 119, 127, 173, 235, 239, 
 
 240, 269, 296, 315. 
 Carloman, i. 33, 64 re, 70, 307; ii. 
 
 139. 
 Carolingian cycle, i. 333. 
 Carpi, ii. 235. 
 Carseoli, ii. 239. 
 Cassel, i. 110. 
 Cassiodorius, i. 17. 
 Caste system, i. 176. 
 CatUine, ii. 259. 
 Cato, Distiches of, ii. 166 re. 
 Cavalcanti, ii. 272 re. 
 Cecoano, ii. 208. 
 Cencius Erangipani, ii. 214. 
 Champagne, Count of, i. 274 n. 
 Chanson de Roland, ii. 267. 
 Charlemagne, Office of, i. 31. 
 Charles Martel, i. 24, 27, 44, 63, 70, 
 
 307, 309. 
 
 Charles of Anjou, ii. 62, 200. 
 Charles the Bald, i. 32 re, 33, 34, 36. 
 Charles the Fat, i. 34 ; ii. 139, 154. 
 Charles the Great, i. 23-87, 131, 165, 
 175, 192, 204, 209, 247, 269, 271, 
 
 308, 310 ; ii. 64, 65, 66, 67, 94, 120, 
 261, 266-268. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Charles the Great, Canonization of, ii. 
 
 160. 
 Charles IV., i. 187, 227. 
 Charles v., i. 19. 
 Charles of Valois, ii. 278. 
 Chartres, ii. 86. 
 Chaucer, ii. 260. 
 Cherrier, ii. 271 n. 
 Chiemsee, i. 298. 
 Chilperic, i. 271. 
 Chiusi, ii. 240. 
 Chlotaire III. , i. 70. 
 Christ, i. 15, 16. 
 Christian of Oldenburg, i. 141. 
 Christian I. of Mainz, ii. 71, 83, 2.38- 
 
 240. 
 Christian II. of Mainz, ii. 79. 
 Chronicles, German, attitude towards 
 
 Slaves, i. 97 ; towards rebellion, i. 
 
 341; of Henry III., i. 198. 
 Chur, ii. 76. 
 
 Cielo dal Camo, ii. 270 n. 
 Cistercian Order, ii. 15. 
 Cistercians, ii. 26, 33, 50. 
 Citta di Castello, ii. 241. 
 Civita nuova, ii. 181. 
 CiWtella, ii. 98. 
 Clement II., ii. 204-205. 
 Clement III., ii. 212. 
 Cleves, Count of, i. 278, 281. 
 Clovis, i. 18, 25. 
 Cluniacs, ii. 69. 
 Cnut V. of Denmark, i. 142. 
 Cnut of England and Denmark, i. 102, 
 
 212. 
 Cnut Lavardh of Schlesvig, ii. 13. 
 Coblentz, i. 277 n ; ii. 80. 
 Cologne, the town. 
 
 Ravaged by the Danes, i. 42. 
 
 Supports Emperor during War of 
 Investitures, i. 75, 285. 
 
 Province of, i. 89 n, 297. 
 
 A colloquy arranged at, i. 110. 
 
 Truce of God at, i. 200. 
 
 The Mint of, i. 269, 270. 
 
 Jealousy of Kaiserwerth, i. 280, 281. 
 
 Bargain with Emperors, i. 289. 
 
 Wealth of, i. 302 «. 
 
 Traders from, ii. 53. 
 
 School in, ii. 86. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 Innocent III.'s interference in, ii. 
 
 124, 126, 127 n. 
 Archbishops of, i. 108, 119, 141, 
 
 143, 188, 213, 222, 223, 268, 274, 
 
 293, 339 ; ii. 48, S3, 99, 100, 104, 
 
 131)!, 132, 238. 
 Coleman, i. 230. 
 Colonna, Odo da, ii. 265 n. 
 Gomes, i. 163. 
 
 Gomitatiis of Tacitus, i. 333-337. 
 Common penny the, i. 294. 
 Compostella, i. 29. 
 
 ConstUutio Contra InrPiuUarios. i. 
 
 178 », 205 m. 
 Connfilutio lie Expedilimu JRomana, i. 
 
 217. 
 Conatitntio in Favoreni Prinripum, i. 
 
 291. 
 Constitittio de Jure Feudorum, ii. 162- 
 
 164. 
 Coitititutio de Pare tenenda, i. 273. 
 Conrad, i. 72, 94. 
 Conrad of Burgundy, i. 4.5. 
 Conrad of Ltltzelhard, ii. 241. 
 Conrad of Magdeburg, i. 250 ». 
 Conrad of Montferrat, ii. 241. 
 Conrad of Passau, ii. 33 ?i. 
 Conrad of Wettin, i. 318. 
 Conrad of Wittelsbach, ii. 75 u. 
 Conrad, son of Henry IV., i. 131. 
 Conrad II., Count Palatine of the 
 
 Rhine, i. 340. 
 
 Conrad II. 
 
 His confirmation of Saxon law, i. 101, 
 
 102, 117. 
 His judicial methods, i. 167, 168, 169. 
 Possible Landpeaces of, i. 197, 198. 
 Inquisitions into crown property, 
 
 i. 217, 260. 
 Alleged feudal decree in Germany, 
 
 i. 238-241. 
 Charter to Bamberg, i. 321. 
 Treatment of the Duchies, i. 323. 
 Revolt of Ernest of Swabia against, 
 
 i. 337. 
 Slavonic policy of, ii. 29. 
 Simony of, ii. 67. 
 Illiteracy of, ii. 79, 97. 
 Feudal legislation in Italy, ii. 145, 
 
 150-158, 165. 
 Coronation in Rome, ii. 204. 
 
290 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Courad III. 
 
 His election, i. 136. 
 
 His North German policy, i. 139, 
 140, 330. 
 
 His crusade, i. 147. 
 
 His treaty with ilanuel, i. 153. 
 
 Character of feuda in his reign, i. 
 331, 332. 
 
 Relations with Austria, ii. 34. 
 
 Control of the Church, ii. 70, 75. 
 
 Relations to Kome, ii. 217-219. 
 Conrad IV., i. 262, 289, 293 ; ii. 24 )f, 
 
 131, 134, 168 re. 
 Conradin, i. 166 ; ii. 62, 269 re. 
 Constance, Bishops of, i. 72, 134 ; ii. 
 
 128 re. 
 Constance, Lake of, ii. 88. 
 Constance, Peace of, i. 150 ; ii. 167, 
 
 174, 175, 247-249. 
 Constance, Synod at, i. 198. 
 Constance, Town of, i. 259, 294, 128 re. 
 Constance of Sicily, ii. 228. 
 Constans II., i. 22. 
 Constantine, i. 23, 26, 38, 191, 192. 
 Constantinus Afer, ii. 259. 
 Constantius Chlorus, i. 69. 
 Constantine, Donation of, i. 23, 24, 
 
 29; ii. 115. 
 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, ii. 273. 
 Constantine, son of Irene, i. 25 n. 
 Constantinople (Byzantium), i. 18, 19, 
 
 20, 23, 35, 154; ii. 20, 37, 48, 117, 
 
 185, 259 re, 27.3, 277. 
 Conversano, Region of, ii. 192 re. 
 Coram Bege Rolls, i. 186. 
 Corbinian, i. 63. 
 Coronation Oath, i. 167. 
 Coronation Service, ii. 2. 
 Corpus Juris Canonici, i. 201. 
 Corregio, ii. 235. 
 Corsi, The, ii. 212. 
 Cortenuova, ii. 174, 226, 250. 
 Corvey, i. 117, 259, 268, 320. 
 Cosmas of Prague, ii. 10. 
 Cotrone, i. 315. 
 County Court, i. 194. 
 Coyne, i. 265. 
 Crema, ii. 161. 
 Cremona, ii. 139, 149, 167 «, 247, 256, 
 
 258 re. 
 Crescentii, The, ii. 202, 204. 
 
 Creusseu, i. 128. 
 
 Croatians, ii. 4. 
 
 Crusades, The, ii. 136. 
 
 Cunigunde, i. 71. 
 
 Cuniza, ii. 150. 
 
 Curia Begis of England, i. 166, 186. 
 
 Curland, i. 264; ii. 18, 22. 
 
 Cyril, ii. 3. 
 
 Cyrus, i. 15, 26. 
 
 Czecks, ii. 3. 
 
 Dachau, i. 301 n, 
 
 Damasus II., ii. 205. 
 
 Damietta, ii. 41. 
 
 Danegeld, i. 293, 310, 334. 
 
 Danes, i. 36, 42, 106, 113, 147, 303, 
 
 309 ; ii. 6, 7, 20. 
 Daniel, Amaut, ii. 269. 
 Daniel, i. 19. 
 Dante, ii. 255, 260, 364, 266, 268, 
 
 269, 272. 
 Danube, i. 68, 69, 131 ; ii. 2, 48. 
 David, i. 24. 
 De Aninia, The, ii. 261. 
 DecrftaU, forged. The, i. 35, 46. 
 Degenhard of Hellenstein, i. 262. 
 Denmark, i. 274 ; ii. 2, 17, 21, 83, 97, 
 
 132. 
 Desiderius of Monte Cassino, ii. 67, 259. 
 Desideriua of Pavia, ii. 263. 
 Deut-schenspiegel, i. 187. 
 Dicdogiis de Scaccario [Dialogue on the 
 
 Exchequer], i. 186, 259, 294. 
 Dienstrecht, i. 165, 213. 
 Dientsmen, cf. Miniateriales. 
 Dietrich of the Nordmark, ii. 7, 9. 
 Dietrich of Verdun, ii. 211. 
 Dietrich of Wettin, i. 317. 
 Diocletian, i. 69 ; ii. 196. 
 Dionysian collection of canons, i. 25. 
 Dithmarsh, i. 236, 297, 336. 
 Dithmarshers, i. 297 ; ii. 18. 
 Divine Comedy, The, ii. 136, 272. 
 Doberan, ii. 15. 
 
 Domain, Royal, i. Ill, 112, 149-152. 
 Donar, i. 84. 
 Donne, ii. 272. 
 Donatus, ii. 89. 
 
 Dotialz Provencal, The, ii. 269. 
 Dordrecht, i. 270. 
 
INDEX 
 
 291 
 
 Doomsday Book, i. 259. 
 Doria Percevalle, ii. 265 n. 
 Dortmund, i. 283 n. 
 Dornstetten, i. 267. 
 Drave, ii. 3. 
 Dresden, i. 318. 
 Drogo, ii. 259. 
 Duisburg, i. 270, 278, 280. 
 Dukes of Saxony, i. 224. 
 Dyle, i. 42, 91. 
 
 East Mark, i. 99. 
 
 Eastphalia, i. 83, 84, 103. 
 
 East Saxony, i. 141, 142, 193. 
 
 Bbenhartirjkeit, i. 180. 
 
 Eberhard, Count, i. 110. 
 
 Eberhard of Franconia, i. 74 n. 
 
 Ebersberg, i. 298. 
 
 Eocelin da Romano, ii. 172 n, 177, 249, 
 
 252. 
 Eckard or Ekkeiiard I. of Meissen, 
 
 i. 99, 100, 315, 316. 
 Eckard or Ekkehard II. of Meissen, 
 
 i. 316. 
 Eckart the mystic, ii. 260 n. 
 Eckbert I. of Brunswick, Margrave of 
 
 Meissen, i. 134, 138, 140, 317. 
 Eckbert II. of Brunswick, Margrave 
 
 of Meissen, i. 317, 318, 339. 
 EdictunicontrainJideUHimperiiltalicos, 
 
 li. 173. 
 Edward I. of England, ii. 91. 
 Edward II. of England, i. 166. 
 Edward the Confessor, ii. 42. 
 Egbert of England, i. 145. 
 Egdor, ii. 19. 
 Egino, i. 108. 
 Eichstadt, i. 76, 77, 81; ii. 102)i, 
 
 131 n. 
 Eider, i. 83. 
 Eike of Repgow, i. 172, 187, 1897i, 
 
 195 n, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 245 n, 
 
 27-5. 
 Eimbeck, i. 291. 
 Einhard, i. 54, 84, 85, 124, 175. 
 Elbe, i. 82, 83, 277 ; ii. 3, 6, 8, 9. 
 Eldina, ii. 15. 
 Electoral College, i. 221. 
 Elizabeth of England, ii. 58, 260. 
 Ellwangen, i. 259, 298. 
 Elster, i. 131, 132, 
 
 Emmeran of Poitiers, i. 63. 
 Emmeran, St., i. 62. 
 Engelbert of Admont, i. 192. 
 Engelbert of Cologne, i. 2] 1 n, ii. 83, 
 
 211. 
 Engelburga, i. 33. 
 Engern, i. 273 «. 
 Engilingau, i. 73. 
 England, ii. 48, 259, 275. 
 Engrians, i. 83, 84, 103. 
 Enns, i. 65 ; ii. 52. 
 Entry to Spain, The, ii. 267. 
 Enzio, ii. 24)», 177, 250, 251, 265, 
 
 270. 
 Erchanger, i. 71. 
 Erohempert, ii. 138. 
 Erfart, i. 76 ; ii. 100. 
 Ermlanders, i. 102. 
 Ermoldus, Nigellus, i. 32. 
 Ernest, Duke of Swabia, i. 239, 240, 
 
 337 ; ii. 30. 
 Ernest, Margrave of Bavaria, i. 123. 
 Este, li. 150 ?i, 155, 268. 
 Etheler of Dithmarsch, i. 336. 
 Eugenius III., i. 153, 205; ii. 70, 217. 
 Exarchate, ii. 143. 
 ExrJie'iuer, Dialogue on ihi>, cf. Dia- 
 
 logus de Scaccario. 
 
 Faenza, ii. 175, 244. 
 
 Falcandus, i. 154 ; ii. 254. 
 
 Fano, ii. 181. 
 
 Farfa, ii. 139. 
 
 Fermo, ii. 258 n. 
 
 Ferrara, ii. 254. 
 
 Fiesole, ii. 259. 
 
 Filicaja, ii. 255. 
 
 Flachtort, i. 320. 
 
 Flanders, i. 55, 82, 268. 
 
 Flarcheim, i. 132. 
 
 Flemings, i. 138 ; ii. 3. 
 
 Florence, ii. 176, 241, 258 n, 271. 
 
 Foggia, ii. 199. 
 
 Fontanet, i. 35. 
 
 Forcalquier, i. 242. 
 
 Forcheim, i. 76, 132, 133. 
 
 Fortunatus, i. 60. 
 
 Foium Julii, ii. 258 n. 
 
 France, i. 274, 311 ; ii. 129, 257, 275 
 278. 
 
292 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Francis, St., ii. 261, 265, 267, 2i;s. 
 Franconia, i. 56, 72-79, SI, 204, 260, 
 
 261, 262, 264 ; ii. 75. 
 Franconia, Crown estates in, i. 76, 81. 
 Franconia, Palaces in, i. 75 n. 
 Frangipani, The, ii. 214, 217, 222, 
 
 224, 226, 228. 
 
 Frankfort, i. 76, 77, 221, 283 ?i, 284, 
 
 287, 291, 292 ; ii. 84, 228. 
 Frankish law, i. 73, 74. 
 Franenmunster, i. 272. 
 Fraxinetum, ii. 137. 
 Frederick I. (Barbarossa). 
 
 Canonization of Charles the Great, 
 
 i. 30. 
 His Italian victories, i. 75. 
 Charter to Wurzburg, i. 78. 
 His Xorth German policy, i. 139- 
 
 144 ; ii. 23. 
 Motives and results of his Italian 
 policy, i. 149-155. 
 
 His promise to Eugenius III., i. 
 168 n. 
 
 The Ssixoii Lehnrecht attributed to 
 
 him, i. 171, 247. 
 Deprives German prelates of their 
 
 regalia, i. 175. 
 
 His Romanism, i. 192. 
 
 No intention of introducing Roman 
 
 law into Germany, i. 193 n. 
 His Landpeaces, i. 204, 205. 
 His activity as a policeman, i. 212. 
 
 Attempts to strengthen criminal 
 justice, i. 214. 
 
 Sees the value of feudalism, i. 241 ; 
 and attempts to preserve the 
 oflBcial character of fiefs, i. 242, 
 244. 
 
 But violates his own rules, i. 247,248. 
 His territorial policy, i. 262, 263. 
 Charter to Trent, i. 265 n. 
 Regulates the coinage of Aix, i. 269. 
 His industrial promurecsame«(o,i. 273. 
 Objects to French subjects holding 
 
 German fiefs, i. 274 n. 
 Restricts part of his prerogative, i. 
 
 279. 
 Builds Kaiserwerth, i. 280. 
 His municipal policy, i. 286. 
 His finance, i. 293, 294. 
 His purchase of advocacies, i. 321, 
 
 322. 
 
 His initial concessions, i. 330. 
 
 His court at Mainz, i. 339. 
 
 His profession of missionary zeal, 
 ii. 2 n. 
 
 Testimony to his greatness, ii. 20. 
 
 His erection of Austria into a duchy, 
 ii. 34-37. 
 
 Decides a boundary dispute, ii. 47. 
 
 Supported by German Church, ii. 
 58, 103-113. 
 
 Present at episcopal elections, ii. 70. 
 
 Control of Church, ii. 71. 
 
 Exercises right of spoils, ii. 72, 
 73. 
 
 Acquisition of Church fiefs, ii. 75. 
 
 Residence in Italy, ii. 145. 
 
 Composition of his court, ii. 14S. 
 
 Feudal legislation in Italy, ii. 160- 
 167. 
 
 Abandons claim to the Roman pre- 
 fecture, ii. 216. 
 
 Relations ^ith Rome, ii. 219-224. 
 
 Italian verdicts on, ii. 236 ; ii. 255 ». 
 
 His Italian administration, ii. 237- 
 
 244. 
 Attitude to the Italian towns, ii. 
 
 244-249. 
 His privilege to Bologna, ii. 258. 
 Acquiesces in the rule of the princes, 
 
 ii. 276. 
 
 Frederick II. (the Great). 
 Visits to Germany, i. 151. 
 Judicial reforms in Germany, i. 1 s3, 
 
 184, 206, 209, 214, 215. 
 Capitulates to the princes, i. 218- 
 
 220, 265 K, 270. 
 His territorial policy in Germanv. 
 
 i. 262, 262 n. 
 Cirants of lands in Livonia, etc., 
 
 1. 264. 
 His concessions in respect of Ger- 
 man tolls, i. 279. 
 His municipal policy in Germany, 
 
 i. 288, 291. 
 His financial genius diverted to 
 
 Italy, i. 295. 
 His North German charters, ii. 21, 
 
 22. 
 Attempts to rally Germany against 
 
 the Mongols, ii. 23, 24. 
 His Austrian policy, ii. 41-47, 51. 
 Opposition of the Popes to, ii. 60, 61. 
 
INDEX 
 
 293 
 
 Frederick II. (the Great). 
 Church policy, ii. 72-76. 
 Explanation of the peciiliar hos- 
 tility towards, ii. Ill, 112. 
 Bribes to the German princes, ii. 
 
 129, 130. 
 Support of the German Church, ii. 
 
 130-135. 
 Italian edicts of, ii. 145, 173-175. 
 Rationalism of, ii. 167-170. 
 Constitutional position of, ii. 170- 
 
 171. 
 ImperiaKsm of, ii. 171-172. 
 Municipal policy in Italy, ii. 175. 
 Administration in Italy, ii. 176, 177, 
 
 251-253. 
 Judicial organization in Italy, ii. 
 
 178-181. 
 His government of Sicily, ii. 181-200. 
 Views on the Roman prefecture, ii. 
 
 216. 
 Relations to the city of Rome, ii. 
 
 224-228. 
 
 Beginnings of a parliamentary sys- 
 tem under, ii. 244. 
 
 His conquest of Italy, ii. 249-250. 
 
 Patronizes Walther von der Vogel- 
 weide, ii. 260. 
 
 His character andinfiuence in litera- 
 ture, ii. 260-269. 
 
 His appreciation of Roman im- 
 perialism, ii. 276. 
 Frederick III., i. 185 n. 
 Frederick, Count, i. 337. 
 Frederick of Antioch, ii. 251. 
 Frederick of Austria, i. 211 ; ii. 42-47. 
 Frederick de Berg, i. 114. 
 Frederick of Bremen, ii. 14, 83. 
 Frederick of Stauffen, i. 325, 32S. 
 Frederick of Upper Lorraine, ii. 150, 
 
 205. 
 Freiburg, i. 271. 291. 
 Freising, i. 63, 273, 29S : ii. 29 n, 44, 
 
 45, 87, 102 «, 113, 131 J(. 
 Freising, Otto of, cf Otto. 
 Fremdc, 274, 275, 
 French at Palermo, ii. 184 «. 
 Freundschaften at Strassburg, i. 287. 
 Friesland, cf. Frisia. 
 Frisia, 42, 55, 104, 106, 141, 264, 268, 
 
 269 : ii. 15, 16. 
 Frisian law, 73. 
 
 Frisians, 1. 297 ; ii. 14. 
 
 Frisian settlements in Thuringia, 72. 
 
 Fritzlar, ii. SOn. 
 
 Friuli, ii. 139. 
 
 Frohse, i. 99. 
 
 Fromund of Tegernsee, ii. 87. 
 
 Fulda, i. 76, S3, 114, 119, 124, 182 k, 
 
 197,257, 259, 339; ii. 91. 
 Fulda, Annals of, ii. 154. 
 Fiirstenhhin, 244. 
 
 Galeria, ii. 208. 
 
 Gall, St., ii. 66. 
 
 Gallio, ii. 263. 
 
 Galvano Lancia, ii. 252. 
 
 Gandersheim, i. 100, 320. 
 
 Garigliano, The, ii. 137. 
 
 Gau, The, i. S97(, 313, 314. 
 
 Gebhard of Constance, i. 134. 
 
 Gebhard of Florence, ii. 206. 
 
 Gebhard of Eichstadt, ii. 98 ii. 
 
 Gebhard of Supplinberg, i. 134. 
 
 Gelasius I., i. 38. 
 
 Gelasius II., ii. 214, 21.5. 
 
 Gelasius the Artist, ii. 262. 
 
 Gelnhausen, ii. 108. 
 
 Geneva, ii. 71. 
 
 Genoa, i. 153, 154; ii. 159n, 167, 237, 
 247, 266, 268. 
 
 Geoffrey of Brittaoy, i. 243 n. 
 
 Gerberga, i. 41. 
 
 Gerbert of Rheims, ii. 89. 
 
 Gerhard of Alsace, 336. 
 
 Gerhoh of Reichersberg, i. 252, 258 ; 
 ii. 78, 113-118. 
 
 GerichtsleJitn, i. 244. 
 
 German cases in Italy, ii. 180. 
 
 German, Use of, in pleadings, i. 185 ?i. 
 
 Germania of Tacitus, i. 333. 
 
 Gero, 53, 91, 99 ; ii. 6, 7. 
 
 Gero, Sons of, 129, 130. 
 
 Gerstungen, 118. 
 
 Gertrude of Austria, ii. 43. 
 
 Gertrude of Brunswick, i. 134, 138, 
 139, 318. 328. 
 
 Gertrude, d. of Henry the Lion, i. 
 142. 
 I Gervase of Tilbury, 154. 
 
 Gfiiths, i. 333. 
 I Giacomo da Lentino, ii. 265 n. 
 
294 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Girgenti, ii. 196. 
 
 Glogau, ii. 8. 
 
 Godehard of Hildesheim, ii. 96 n. 
 
 Godfrey of Helfenstein, ii. "242. 
 
 Godfrey of Lorraine, ii. 205, 206. 
 
 Godfrey of Trfe\'es, ii. 93. 
 
 Godfrey of Viterbo, i. 29 ; ii. 25S. 
 
 Godfrey IV. of Wurzburg, 79. 
 
 Goethe, ii. 22S. 
 
 Gorimf, Tlie, 194, 214. 
 
 Golden Bull, The, i. 226. 
 
 Gonzaga, ii. 235. 
 
 Goslar, i. 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 
 
 115, 120, 121, 125, 141. 142, 273 n, 
 283 n, 339; ii. 21, 94, 230. 
 
 Goths, 69. 
 
 Gottingen, i. 291. 
 
 Gottsohalk, i. 336. 
 
 Gran, i. 230, 231. 
 
 Gratian, ii. 119. 
 
 Greek Church, ii. 116. 
 
 Greek scholars, 42. 
 
 Greenland, ii. 97. 
 
 Gregory I. (the Great), 21, 22 re; ii. 
 
 67, 93, 276. 
 Gregory V., ii. 86. 
 Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), i. 133,258, 
 
 321; ii. 23, 59, S.5, 99, 101, 114, 
 
 116, 119, 120, 127, 205-20S, 210, 
 211, 277. 
 
 Gregory VIII., ii. 21a. 
 
 Gregory IX.. u. 112, 130, 131, 168, 
 
 224, 225, 226. 
 Gregory of Montelongo, ii. 130. 
 Gregory de Montefuscolo, ii. 195 n. 
 Gregory of Tours, ii. 66, 13S. 
 Guelders, i. 278, 279, 281. 
 Guido of Crema, ii. 23S. 
 Guido Fava, ii. 267 n. 
 Guido Guinioelli, ii. 271, 272 ?». 
 Guido the Legate, ii. 122. 
 Guido of Vienne, ii. 103. 
 Guidotto of Bologna, ii. 265?!. 
 Guittone d'Arezzo, u. 271, 272 /(. 
 Guncelin of Schwerin, ii. 17. 
 Gunther of Meissen, i. 31.?. 
 Gunzo of !tvovara, 42. 
 
 Habichtswalde, i. 110. 
 Hadely, i. 102, 104. 
 
 Hadrian II., i. 33. 
 
 Hadrian IV., i. 153, 154 ; ii. 103, 221. 
 Hagenau, i. 283 «, 2S4, 292. 
 Hainault, i. 241. 242, 243 n. 
 Halberstadt, i. 110, 113, 114, 115, 
 
 143, 294, 297; ii. 102 re. 
 Haldersleben, i. 142. 
 Halle, i. 291. 
 Hallstadt, i. 76. 
 Hamburs, i. 91, 104, 277 : ii. S. 9. 10, 
 
 53. 
 Hammerstein, i. 273 ?i. 
 Hammerstein, Countess of, ii. 9.?. 
 Bandgemal, i. 172, 174. 275. 
 Hannibal, i. 26. 
 Hanseatic league, i. 140, 277. 
 Hanseatic towns, i. 55. 
 Hapsburg empire, i. 139. 
 Hapsburg, of. Rudolph of. 
 Hartmuth of St. Gall, ii. 91. 
 Hartwich of Bremen, i. 141. 
 Harzburg, i. 115, 116, 121, 122. 123, 
 
 128, 129. 
 Harz Mountains, i. 106, 117, 131, 
 
 149, 150, 264, 265, ii. 10. 
 Hassegau, i. 338. 
 Hatto of Mainz, i. 53)'. 
 Havel, ii. 9. 
 Havelburg, ii. 6, 7. 
 Heerschild, The, i. 176-lSU, 245. 
 Heidelberg, i. 291, 298, 299. 
 Hdiand, The, SS, 333. 
 Hebnershausen, i. 320. 
 Helmold, ii. 17. 
 Henneburg, ii. 74. 
 Hennegau, i. 268. 
 Henr\-, I. (the Fowler). 
 
 Creates town life in Saxony, i. 90. 
 
 Defeats the Hungarians, i. 42, 91, 
 94. 
 
 His concessions to Bavaria, i. 140, 
 335 ; ii. 78. 
 
 His chronicles, i. 341. 
 
 His Slavonic wars, ii. 6. 
 
 His simony, ii. 67. 
 Henry II. (the Saint). 
 
 Charter to Wurzburg, i. 78. 
 
 Foundation of Bamberg, i. 79. 
 
 His election to the kingship, i. 97- 
 101. 
 
INDEX 
 
 295 
 
 Henry II. (the Saint). 
 
 Relations to Saxony, i. 99, 100, 104, 
 
 105, 107. 
 His Ctiurcli reforms, i. 133 ; ii. 94- 
 
 96. 
 His peace ordinances, i. 196, 197. 
 Commands the Priim land-survey, 
 
 i. 259. 
 His Slavonic policy, ii. 8, 9. 
 His views as to the civic obligations 
 
 of the Church, ii. 72 n. 
 His exercise of Church patronage, 
 
 ii. 79-81, 90. 
 Opposition to, in Italy, ii. 150, 151. 
 Driven from Rome, ii. 204. 
 Italian poems on, ii. 255 n, 258. 
 Henry III. 
 
 His Slavonic policy, i. 102 ; ii. 9. 
 
 Attitude of the Saxons towards, i. 
 
 105-107, 261. 
 His eflforts to secure the peace, i. 
 
 198, 199. 
 Anarchy at his death, i. 212. 
 His donations in Hungary, i. 264 ; 
 
 ii. 30, 36. 
 Grant of the Nimwegen tolls, i. 
 
 Treatment of the Duchies, i. 323. 
 
 Ecclesiastical policy, ii. 67-9, 79, 
 
 97-9. 
 Encouragement of letters, ii. 87, 90, 
 
 256. 
 Decree for Lombardy, ii. 144 ?i. 
 His position in Rome, ii. 204, 205. 
 His appearance in Italy, ii. 233, 
 Henry IV. 
 
 His conduct during the Saxon wars, 
 
 i. 107-134, .323. 
 His Landpeace, i. 202. 
 Inquisition into crown property, i. 
 
 217, 253. 
 Complaint of judicial corruption, i. 
 
 251. 
 Services owed to, i. 260, 261. 
 Reception in Worms, i. 285. 
 Requires subsidy from princes, i. 
 
 293. 
 A scene at his court, i. 339. 
 His difficulty in keeping an army 
 
 together, i. 341. 
 His Slavonic policj», ii. 9. 
 
 Relations to the ilargrave of 
 
 Austria, ii. 30. 
 Importance of his deposition, ii. 56, 
 
 57, 277. 
 Supported by the German Church, 
 
 ii. 99-102. 
 Attacked by Gerhoh, ii. 114. 
 Absence of Italian legislation, ii. 
 
 144. 
 Relations with Rome, ii. 209-212. 
 Henry Y. 
 
 Privilege to Wurzburg, i. 77- 
 Opposition to his father, i. 131. 
 His Saxon wars, i. 134-136. 
 Growth of a new nobility in his 
 
 reign, i. 137. 
 A contemporary criticism of, i. 167. 
 His rumoured Danegeld, i. 293. 
 His relations to Bavaria, i. 326, ?.27. 
 His Saxon policy, ii. 9. 
 His simony, ii. 93. 
 
 His attempted ecclesiastical settle- 
 ment, ii. 102, 103. 
 
 His ititerpretation of the Concordat 
 of Worms, ii. 104 n. 
 Henry VI. 
 
 Godfrey of Viterbo's poem to, i. 29. 
 
 Practically Italian, i. 151, 1.52. 
 
 His marriage with Constance of 
 Sicily, i. 155, 155 ». 
 
 Anarchy on the death of, i. 207, 
 208, 212. 
 
 Territorial policy, i. 262. 
 
 Capitulation to Cologne, i. 27U. 
 
 Importance of his death, ii. 40. 
 
 His Italian rule, ii. 59, 145, 243, 249. 
 
 His simony, ii. 71. 
 
 Ecclesiastical appeals to, ii. 77. 
 
 His coronation during his father's 
 lifetime, ii. 105. 
 
 His violence, ii. 107. 
 
 Proposes to make crown hereditary, 
 i. 149 n ; ii. 134, 276. 
 
 Buys his coronation in Rome, ii. 
 224. 
 
 Appoints a Sicilian legate, ii. 239. 
 
 Provencal antagonists of, ii. 268. 
 Henry VII., i. 175, 182. 211 h, 289, 
 
 291 ; ii. 41, 83, 129, 250. 
 Henry VII. of Luxemburg, i. 220 n. 
 Henry II. of England, i. 142, 170, 242 
 
 274, 295 ; ii. 20, 157, 15S, 196. 
 
296 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Henry III. of England, i. 234. 
 Henry VII. of England, i. 252. 
 Henry III. of France, ii. 5S. 
 Henry I. of Bavaria, 96, 98, 
 336. 
 
 323, 
 
 Henry II. (the Pacific) of Bavaria, 
 
 97. 
 Henry IX. (the Black) of Bavaria, 
 
 i. 138, 173, 327, 328 ; ii. 34. 
 
 Henry X. (the Proud) of Bavaria, i. 
 138, 141, 173, 330. 
 
 Henrj' XII. (the Lion) of Bavaria and 
 .Saxony, i. 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 
 144, 148, 173, 174, 211, 297, 298, 
 323, 330, 332, 340, 341 n ; ii. 13, 
 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 34, 35, 37, 71, 
 122. 
 
 Henry I. of Austria, i. 139, 297 ; ii. 
 
 29, 34, 35, 37. 
 Henry I. of Wittelsbaoh, i. 273. 
 Henry Borwin, ii. 19. 
 Henry of Brunswick, i. 144 n. 
 Henry, the son of Gottsohalk, i. 136 ; 
 
 ii. 12, 13, 16. 
 Henry of Ivrea, ii. 152 n. 
 Henry of Maestricht, ii. 71. 
 Henry of Jfamur, 241. 
 Henry of ^"^ordheim, 139, 318. 
 Henry Raspe, i. 289 ; ii. 133. 
 Henrj- of Segusia, i. 225. 
 Henry of Silesia, ii. 15. 
 Henry of Wettin, i. 317, 318. 
 Herbord, ii. 83. 
 Hermann of Augsburg, ii. 114. 
 Hermann BilUiug, i. 96, 103 ; ii. 6. 
 Hermann Billunglll., i. 113. 
 Hermann I. of Meissen, i. 316. 
 Hermann II. of Meissen, i. 316. 
 Hermann of Constance, ii. 236. 
 Hermann of Hildesheim, i. 141. 
 Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia, 
 
 i. 73. 
 Hermann of Luxemburg, 131, 132. 
 Hermann of Reichenau, ii. 98 n. 
 Hermann of Salza, ii. 22, 172 n. 
 Hermann of Winzenberg, i. 137. 
 Hermunduri, i. 69. 
 Herrieden, i. 257 n- 
 Hersfeld, i. 76 /(, 114, 116, 119, 124, 
 
 148, 197. 
 Hesse, i. 56, 76 n, 235 ; ii. 3, 16. 
 
 Hessian settlements in Thuriagia, 
 
 i. 72. 
 Hevellians, ii. 6. 
 Hilda, ii. 15. 
 
 Hildebrand, cf. Gregory VII. 
 Hildehrandslied, The, i. 54 n ; ii. 85. 
 Hildesheim, i. 98, 114, 141, 297 ; ii. 
 
 8, 113. 
 Hincmar of Rheims, ii. 67, 93. 
 Hirschau, William of, i. 133, 134. 
 Hochst, ii. 95, 96 n. 
 HofrecTit, i. 165. 
 Hohenburg, cf. Homburg. 
 Hohenlohe, ii. 74. 
 Hohenlohe, Count of, i. 77. 
 Hohenstauffen, The, i. 55, 320; ii. 75, 
 
 76, and j^assi/n. 
 Hohentwiel, i. 72. 
 Holland, ii. 16. 
 Hollanders, i. 138 ; ii. 14, 15. 
 Holsatia, cf. HolsteLn. 
 Holsatians, i. 92; ii. 10, 16, 18. 
 
 Holstein, i. 144, 193, 297, 336 ; ii. 
 
 2, 11. 
 Holy Cross (Heiligen Kreutz), Abbey 
 
 of, ii. 29, 33. 
 Homburg (or Hohenburg), i. 127, 129, 
 
 341 ; ii. 30. 
 Homeyer, i. 249. 
 Honorius IL, ii. 114, 209. 
 Honorius III., ii. 41, 129. 
 Hosiah, i. 38. 
 Hrothrud, i. 25. 
 Hrothsuitha of Gandersheim, i. 43,93 ; 
 
 ii. 89. 
 Huber, i. 230. 
 Hubert Walter, i. 171. 
 Hugh, Marquis of Italy, ii. 203. 
 Hugh of Provence, i. 43, 44. 
 Huguccio of Pisa, i. 191. 
 Huisberg, i. 320. 
 Humbert the Deacon, ii. 98. 
 Hundred Court, i. 194. 
 Hundsruck, i. 207. 
 Hungarian wars, ii. 29, 30. 
 Hungarians, i. 42. 
 
 Hungary, i. 202, 228-231 ; ii. 42, 44. 
 Huns, i. 49. 
 
 Iceland, ii. 97. 
 Immedingi, i. 104, 105. 
 
INDEX 
 
 297 
 
 Immula of Turin, ii. 150. 
 
 Ingelheim, Synod of, ii. 67. 
 
 Ingolstadt, 302 n. 
 
 Inn, ii. 28. 
 
 Innocent II. , 205. 
 
 Innocent III., i. 149n, .331; ii. 59, 
 
 60, 62 n, 77, 119-129, 187, 256. 
 Innocent IV., ii. 23, 112. 
 Inqmxitioni.i hrecia, i. 163. 
 Inquisition, The, ii. 128 «, 263. 
 Inquisitions into crown property. 
 
 Interregnum, The, i. 75. 
 Investiture, Wars of, i. 324-326 ; ii. 
 
 237. 
 Irene, i. 2an, 26, 29. 
 Irish scholars, i. 42. 
 Irminsul, i. 84. 
 Isidore, i. 54. 
 
 Istria, i. 202, 315 ; ii. 143, 230. 
 Ita of Austi-ia, ii. 32. 
 Itineraries, i. 166. 
 Ivois, ii. 94, 95. 
 Ivrea, i. 1.39, 258 n. 
 
 Jacob of Caneto, ii. 252. 
 Jacobus de Ardizone, ii. 165. 
 Jacopo da Lentini, ii. 272 n. 
 Jacopo Mortacci da Pisa, ii. 265 n. 
 James of Capua, ii. 168. 
 James I. of England, ii. 260. 
 James, St., i. 209. 
 Jerome, St., i. 16, 19; ii. 138. 
 Jerusalem, i. 144, 200; ii. 117, 172, 
 
 175, 249. 
 Jews, i. 203 ; ii. 193, 197. 
 Joachim of Flora, ii. 62 n. 
 Joannes Blancus of Marseilles, ii. 165. 
 John of Buch, i. 195 71. 
 John of Colonna, ii. 227. 
 .John of Gorze, ii. S9. 
 John of Salisbury, ii. 116, US. 
 John of Velletri, ii. 206. 
 John VIII. i. .33, 34; ii. 137, 139. 
 John XII. i. 45; ii. Ill, 201. 
 Jonas of Bobbio, i. 57. 
 Jordanes, i. 56. 
 
 Judicium Parimn in Italy, ii. 180 n. 
 Judex, Bavarian and Old S\^-abiau, 
 
 i. 461. 
 
 Judith of Bavaria, i. 97 n. 
 \ .Julian, i. 69. 
 i Julius II., ii. 137. 
 
 ■Jura, i. 69. 
 { Jus spolii, i. 242. 
 
 Justinian I., i. IS, 20, 192. 
 
 Justinian I., Code of, i. 191 ; ii. 185. 
 
 Justinian II., i. 22. 
 
 Jutes, i. 52, 145. 
 ! Juthungs, i. 6S. 
 
 Kaisfi-h-Ohil:, i. 28, 48 n, 167. 
 ; Kaiserwerth, i. 280, 281. 
 Kammerhhen, i. 274. 
 Kempten, ii. 76. 
 Keutgen, Dr., ii. 258 h. 
 Kiev, ii. 8, 23. 
 Kindelbrucken, i. 128. 
 Klosterneuburg, ii. 26, 31. 
 Kremsmunster, ii. 28, 31. 
 Kulni, ii. 22. 
 
 Lactantius, i. 14. 
 Ladislaus, i. 230. 
 Lambert of Hersfeld, i. 108, 109, 114, 
 
 128 ; ii. 139. 
 Lambert of Spoleto, ii. 106. 
 Lampreeht, i. 272. 
 Landgrave, Title of, i. 314. 
 Landpeace, i. 110, 195-215, 273, 326. 
 Landrecht, 165. 
 Landshut, i. 302)!. 
 Landskron, Burgrave of, i. 293. 
 Landtaijs (Bavarian), i. 301. 
 Lanfrano, ii. S3, 259. 
 Lanfrid, i. 62, 70, 71. 
 Langenzenn, i. 76. 
 Lateran, i. 16, 27, 46. 
 Lateran Council, The third, ii. 121-125. 
 Laudatio, 222, 224. 
 Laurence of Parma, ii. 179. 
 
 Lausitz or Lusatia, i. 68, 135, 143, 318, 
 
 329. 
 Lech, 66. 
 
 Legnano, i. 142, 143, 332 ; ii. 22.3. 
 Lehiii ail eigeUj i. 244. 
 Uhnncht, i. 165, 245. 
 Leitha II., .30. 
 Lenthienses, i. ^>^. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Leo Ostiensis, ii. 259. 
 
 Leo III., i. 27, 28. 
 
 Leo IX., ii. 97, 98, 99, 20.5. 
 
 Leo of Vercelli, ii. 151 m. 
 
 Leopold I. of Austria, ii. 27. 
 
 Leopold II. of Austria, ii. 30, 31. 
 
 Leopold III. of Austria, ii. 26, 32, 33, 
 
 34, 35. 
 Leopold IV. of Austria, ii. 27, 34. 
 Leopold V. of Austria, ii. 38, 39, 40, 47. 
 Leopold VI. of Austria, ii. 41, 42. 
 Lesum, i. 106. 
 Leubus, ii. 15, 16. 
 Lewis I. (the Pious), i. 31, 32, 65, 15S, 
 
 192 n, 268, 271, 272 ; ii. 64, 66, 67, 
 
 141. 
 Lewis II., 1. 33, 36, 40, 257", 271; 
 
 ii. 64, 139, 141. 
 Lewis VI. of France, i. 252. 
 Lewis VII. of France, i. 217. 
 Lewis I. of Bavaria, i. 300, 301 n. 
 Lewis IX. of France, ii. 227. 
 Lewis XIV. of France, i. 60, 242, 267. 
 Lewis the Bearded, i. 72. 
 Lewis the Child, i. 64, 268. 
 Lewis the German, i. 64 n, 268, 271, 
 
 309 ; ii. 64, 65. 
 Lewis the Simple, i. 41. 
 Lewis of Thuringia, i. 141, 320, 340. 
 L&x Ajigliorum et JVerinoruw, i. 73. 
 Lex Pacix Oastrensis, i. 217. 
 Liber Augustalis, ii. 184. 
 Liber Diumus^ i. 21. 
 Liber Papiensis, ii. 141, 142, 144. 
 Liber Pontificalis, i. 21. 
 Libri Feudorwm, ii. 155, 159, 163-165. 
 Lied de Heinri<:o, i. 55 n. 
 
 Lifege, i. 200, 205, 257, 274 ; ii. 71, 93, 
 
 102 «, Uln. 
 Limburg, i. 274 ; ii. 84. 
 Lipari, ii. 196. 
 Litany, Bavarian, 66 n. 
 Lithuanians, 69. 
 
 Liudolf, brother of Otto I., i. 96, 323, 
 
 336. 
 LiudoLfings, i. 103. 
 Liutpoldings, i. 324 n. 
 Livonia, i. 264; ii. 17, 22. 172)i. 
 Lodi, ii. 175, 232, 250, 2.52. 
 Lohengrin, i. 225. 
 
 Lombard crown, The, 151. 
 Lombard law, i. 150 ; ii. 140. 
 Lombard League, 151. 
 Lombard towns, ii. 118, 174, 175, 193, 
 
 199, 266. 
 Lombardy, i. 150, 219 ; ii. 100, 203, 
 
 230, 235, 237, 242, 247, 271. 
 Lomello, ii. 234. 
 London, i. 280 ; ii. 74, 136. 
 Lorch, i. 53 «, 61 )l 
 Lorraine, i. 119, 124 ; ii. 84. 
 Lorraine, Duke of, 182, 235. 
 Lorsch, ii. 75. 
 Lorsch, Annals of, i. 26. 
 Lothair I., i. 31, 36, 41 n ; ii. 140, 141, 
 
 152 ?j, 202, 258. 
 Lothair II. , i. 268. 
 Lothair of Provence and Italy, i. 43, 
 
 44. 
 Lothair of Stade, ilargrave of the 
 
 North March, i. 99. 
 
 Lothair of Supplinberg. 
 
 His Saxon Duchy, i. 1.34, 13.i. 
 
 His election as King, i. 136. 
 
 Marriage of his daughter, i. 138. 
 
 A contemporary estimate of, i. 167. 
 
 His territorial policy, i. 217, 253. 
 
 His Church control, i. 257 n ; ii. 70. 
 
 His donations to Magdeburg, i. 277. 
 
 His early resistance to Henry V., 
 i. 318. 
 
 His treatment of the Duchies, i. 323. 
 
 His fortunes the result of marriasre, 
 i. 324. 
 
 Importance of his reign, i. 329, 330. 
 
 His Slavonic policy, ii. 7, 11-13. 
 
 Treatment of Church fiefs, ii. 75. 
 
 Feudal legislation in Ital}', ii. 145, 
 158, 159, 165. 
 
 Visit to Rome, ii. 215. 
 Lotharingia, 274. 
 Lilbeck, i. 90, 140, 142, 144, 283 n ; ii. 
 
 12, 16, 17, 20, 21. 
 Lucan, ii. 266. 
 
 Lucca, ii. 167 n, 174 », 232, 237, 238. 
 Lucera, ii. 183. 
 Lucius IIL, ii. 105, 224. 
 Ludolf of Magdeburg, ii. 123. 
 Ltidvigslied, i. 54. 
 
 Ludus de culvtntu et iiiterku Anti- 
 chrixii, i. 16 n. 
 
INDEX 
 
 299 
 
 Luitpold of Mainz, ii. 98, 99. 
 Luitpold of the Bohemian and Carin- 
 
 thian Marches, i. 65, 71. 
 Luitprand of Cremona, i. 41 n, 150; 
 
 ii. 89, 138, 256. 
 Lvmeburg, i. Ill, 116, 138; ii. 12, 20. 
 Lun^rille, ii. 278. 
 Lupoid of Bamberg, i. 216. 
 Luticii, ef. Wiltzes. 
 Luxueil, i. 41. 
 Luynes, Due de, ii. 273. 
 Lyons, ii. 61, 133, 160. 
 
 Magdeburg, i. 113, 114, 128, 141, 222, 
 263, 277, 279, 288, 291, 297, 320; 
 ii. 6, 8, 21, 65, 70, 92, 102 ?i, 124. 
 
 Magiater Justiciarius of Sicily, ii. 178, 
 179. 
 
 Magnus Billunger, i. 107, 110, 113, 
 116, 130, 138, 140, 325, 327, 328; 
 ii. 12. 
 
 Magnus of Denmark and Norway, i. 
 102 n. 
 
 Magnus, son of Niel, King of Den- 
 mark, ii. 12. 
 Magyars, i. 65. 
 Maidenheath, i. 265. 
 Main, i. 68, 69, 74, 277, 27s. 
 Maine, i. 243 n. 
 Mainz, town of — 
 
 A court at, i. 108, 339 ; ii. 44. 
 Attacked by the Alamanni, i. 69. 
 Besieged by Otto I., i. 97. 
 Coronation of Henry II. at, i. 99. 
 Coronations at, i. 221-224. 
 Council of, ii. 102. 
 Guilds in, i. 287. 
 Peace of, i. 206, 207 ; ii. 52. 
 Resistance to Innocent III., ii. 
 
 122, 123, 126. 
 Schools in, ii. 86, 257. 
 Synod of, ii. 95. 
 Truce of God at, i. 200. 
 Vineyards in, i. 284 n. 
 Wealth of, i. 293. 
 Archbishop of, i. 73, 117, 118, 119, 
 127, 281, 297; ii. 48)1, 95-97, 102, 
 104, 112, 131, 132, 238, 239. 
 Cathedral of, i. 126, 167. 
 Province of, i. 93, 317, 320; ii. 2.33. 
 Fiefs of, ii. 75, 76. 
 
 Maio, 154. 
 
 Mandahim de Apellationibus, i. 189 n. 
 
 Manfred, ii. 61, 62, 252, 264, 265, 
 265 7? . 
 
 Mannitio ad malluin^ i. 162. 
 Mantua, ii. 99, 175, 235, 247, 2,50. 
 Manuel, Emperor of Byzantium, i. 
 
 153 ; ii. 35?;. 
 Marbach, ii. 76. 
 Marbod, i. 49, 50, 57. 
 Marburg, ii. 113. 
 Marcellinus, 20. 
 Marches, 65. 
 Marcomanni, 49, 58. 
 Marco Polo, ii. 26S. 
 Mariana, ii. 57- 
 Marianus Sootus, ii. 86. 
 Maria Zell, ii. 29. 
 Marienwerder, ii. 22. 
 Markwald of Ancona, ii. 121, 182. 
 Marmora Eaffaele, ii. 268 n. 
 Marozia, i. 44 ;j. 
 Mars, 14. 
 
 Martin da Canale, ii. 267. 
 Masovia, i. 269. 
 
 Matilda of Quedlinburg, wife of Henry 
 L, i. 93. 
 
 Matilda of Quedlinburg, sister of Otto 
 
 III., i. 93. 
 Matilda, d. of Henry the Lion, ii. 19. 
 
 Matilda, wife of Henry the Lion, 
 
 i. 142. 
 Matilda of Tuscany, ii. 206. 
 Matildine heritage, i. 3'-'7)i; ii. 59, 235. 
 Maurice, Emperor of Byzantium, ii. 5. 
 Mautern, ii. 28, 49, 50. 
 Mecklenburg, ii. 2, 15, 18, 19, 71. 
 Medebach, ii. 258 n. 
 Megingaud, i. 76. 
 
 Meinwerc of Paderborn, i. 104 ; ii. 90. 
 Meissen, i. 99, 102, 114, 122, 127 129 
 
 130, 1.35, 235, 262, 297. 
 ileissen, Margraves of, i. 315-319 ; ii. 
 
 6, 8, 10, 102 n, 124. 
 Melti, ii. 195. 
 Melk, ii. 26, 27, 2S. 
 Melrichstadt, i. 132. 
 Merseburg, i. 73, 99, 100, 104. 107, 
 
 114, 196, 263, 316 ; ii. 6, 102 n, 125. 
 Messina, ii. 196, 270. 
 
300 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Messina, Municipal law of, ii. 1S7 n, 
 
 191m. 
 Metellus, ii. 87. 
 Methodius, ii. 3. 
 
 Metz, i. .36, 269 ; ii. 76, 102 n, 133. 
 Milan, i. 1.54, 192, 257; ii. 38, 105, 
 
 107, 130, 149, 152-154, 160, 172 n, 
 
 175-177, 232, 244, 249, 250, 256, 
 
 259, 275. 
 Milan, Archbishop of, ii. 158. 
 Milan, Clergy of, ii. 257 n. 
 Milanese, ii. 44, 149, 174, 226, 238, 
 
 245. 
 Milanese custom, ii. 149 M, 1.55, 165, 
 
 166, 175. 
 Miuden, i. 104 «, 114, 320; ii. 102 Ji. 
 Minhtmahsi. i. 176, 177, 181, 182; 
 
 ii. 44-46, 240, 241, 243, 249. 
 Mirror of Swahia, of. Sckioaben- 
 
 ■spiegel. 
 Missi Dominici, i. 310. 
 Missio in bannum, i. 164. 
 Modena, ii. 138, 232, 235, 244. 
 Mongols, ii. 23, 24 n. 
 Monopoli, ii. 195. 
 Montalto, ii. 225. 
 Moute Aperto, ii. 271. 
 Monte Cassino, ii. 259. 
 Monte Mario, ii. 219, 229. 
 Monte Porzio, ii. 228, 23S. 
 Montefiascone, ii. 241. 
 Montferrat, ii. 268. 
 Monumenta Boica, i. 57. 
 ilouza, ii. 238. 
 Moors, The, ii. 207. 
 Moravia, i. 296 ; ii. 42, 44. 
 Moravians, i. 71 ; ii. 3, 38. 
 Mosaic law, 16. 
 Moselle, 119. 
 Mouzou, ii. 94. 
 Mulde, i. 130. 
 Mnnden, i. 291. 
 Mundium, i. 203. 
 Munich, i. 291, 302 n. 
 Municipal statutes, Italian, ii. 170 «. 
 Miiuster, i. 114; ii. 102 n. 
 Munster, ii. 131 n. 
 ilunstereifel, i. 268. 
 
 Namur, Margraviate of, i. 241. 242, 
 247, 274 n. 
 
 INTamur, Counts of, i. 268. 
 
 Naples, ii. 178 n, 189, 264. 
 
 Napoleon, i. 299 ; ii. 1, 178 )i, 184. 
 
 Narni, ii. 137, 227. 
 
 Narses, i. 22 ; ii. 253. 
 
 Nassau, ii. 74. 
 
 Nassau, Count of, i. 340. 
 
 Naumburg, i. 316, 318. 
 
 Navarre, i. 31. 
 
 Neckar, i. 74, 125. 
 
 Negroponte, i. 154. 
 
 Nepi, ii. 137. 
 
 Neroniau field, ii. 209. 
 
 Neuburg, i. 302 ?j ; ii. 49. 
 
 Neustadt, i. 278 n. 
 
 Xihdungen Lied, i. 52, 60 ; ii. 29. 
 
 Nicea, i. 38. 
 
 Nicholaitism, ii. 96, 97, 99. 
 
 Nicholas, i. 33, 46; ii. 93, 111. 
 
 Nicholas II., ii. 126, 206, 208. 
 
 Nielot, ii. 12, 16-18. 
 
 Xiedermunster, i. 298. 
 
 Niemen, ii. 22. 
 
 Nietsche, ii. 11. 
 
 Nimwegen, 278, 280. 
 
 Ninus, i. 26. 
 
 Norbert, ii. 12, 80 re, S3. 
 
 Xordalbingia, i. 104 n, 336 ; ii. 6, 9, 
 
 12, 13, IS, 23. 
 Nordalbingians, i. 78, 84, 135. 
 Nordhausen, i. 283 n. 
 Xordheim, i. 291. 
 I Xordheim, cf. Otto of. 
 Xordheimers, i. 313, 320, 329 ; ii. 20. 
 Nordlingen, i. 283 n. 
 Nordwald, ii. 38. 
 Norican sees, 63 n. 
 Norman conquest of England, i. 334, 
 
 335. 
 Normandy, 42. 
 Normans, ii. 206, 207. 
 North and South Germany, Cleavage 
 
 between, i. 148. 
 North march, i. 102, 113 ; ii. 7, 13. 
 Northmen, i. 71. 
 Norway, i. 59 n ; ii. 2, 17, 97. 
 Novara, ii. 232. 
 Nuremburg, i. 205, 263, 273 m, 279, 
 
 2S3 re, 292. 
 
INDEX 
 
 301 
 
 Obeiiausitz, i. 316, 317. 
 
 Obodrites, cf. Abodrites. 
 
 Ocbsenfurt, i. 132. 
 
 Ocker, ii. S. 
 
 Oder, ii. 6. 
 
 Odilo, i. 61. 
 
 Odoacer, i. 25, 58. 
 
 Oldenburg, i. 141 ; ii. 6, 7, 17, 71. 
 
 Olderioli Manfred II., ii. 150. 
 
 Oliver, i. 29. 
 
 Oppenheim, i. 118, 119, 2.S0, 2SS. 
 
 Ordulf I. of Saxony, 1. 102 h, 104. 
 
 Orkneys, ii. 97. 
 
 Orosius, i. 19. 
 
 Osnabruek, i. 112, 114, 133 n, 268; ii. 
 
 131 n. 
 Ostrogoths, i. 69, 331. 
 Otbertiner, The, ii. 1.50 n. 
 Otfrid of Weissenberg, ii. 91. 
 Othlo of Regensburg, ii. SS. 
 Otto III. of Brandenburg, ii. 21. 
 Otto I. 
 
 Thietmar's laudation of, i. 30. 
 
 His restoration of the Empire, i. 
 42-46. 
 
 Victory on the Lech, i. 65-94. 
 
 His South Italian campaign, i. 153. 
 
 An alleged epigram, i. 167 n. 
 
 Articles in the Sachsenspierjel as- 
 scribed to, i. 195 n. 
 
 Donations of, in Slavonia, i. 263. 
 
 Establishes March of Meissen, i. 315. 
 
 His difficulties with Bavaria, i. 336. 
 
 History of, by Widukind, i. 341. 
 
 Coronation of, ii. 2. 
 
 Slavonic policy of, ii. 6, 7, 9, 11, 12. 
 
 Endowment of Church, ii. 65, 66. 
 
 Defence of his Church policy, ii. 
 78, 79. 
 
 Patronage of foreign scholars, ii. 
 89, 256. 
 
 Donation to papacy, ii. 94. 
 
 Draws German Church closer to 
 Rome, ii. 112. 
 
 Doubts as to his rights to depose a 
 Pope, ii. 113. 
 
 Extends trial by battle in Italy, ii. 
 144, 145, 147. 
 
 Relations to Rome, ii. 201, 202, 254. 
 
 Challenges a Pope to a duel, ii. 275. 
 
 Otto II. 
 
 His defeat at Cotrone, i. 153. 
 Articles in the Sachsensjnegel attii- 
 
 buted to, 195 n. 
 Grants of, to churches, i. 320. 
 Slavonic difficulties of, ii. 7. 
 Crowned during his father'alifetime, 
 
 ii. 106. 
 Activity of his widow, ii. 202. 
 Otto III. 
 
 His antiquarianism, i. 30, 191. 
 Contemporary criticisms of, i. 47, 
 
 251. 
 Charter to Churches, i. 78, 79. 321. 
 Appeal to the Romans, i. 95. 
 Slavonic campaigns, ii. S. 
 Religious enthusiasm of, ii. 79. 
 Italian legislation of, ii. 145, 147. 
 Relations to Rome, ii. 202, 203. 
 Otto IV. 
 
 Owes his support to foreicn gold, i. 
 
 220. 
 Squanders imperial property, i. 2(52. 
 Concessions to Magdeburg, i. 279. 
 Concessions to Cologne, i. 281. 
 Contemplates a tax, i. 2S7, 294. 
 Represents commercial, papal, and 
 Welf interests, i. 330-332 ; ii. 59, 
 60. 
 Promises to the Chm'ch, ii. 72-74. 
 Recognized bj- Innocent, ii. 122. 
 Succeeds Philip, ii. 128. 
 Sicilian charters of, ii. 182. 
 Coronation of, in Rome, ii. 224. 
 Supported by Italians, ii. 243, 244. 
 Poetry at his court, ii. 260. 
 Otto of Bamberg, i. 257 11 ; ii. 12, S3. 
 Otto of Bavaria, i. 209. 
 Otto of Brandenburg, i. 144. 
 Otto of Freising, i. 191, 212, 228 ; ii. 
 26, 33 «, 34, 87, 103, 219, 229, 257. 
 Otto of Meran, i. 338. 
 Otto of Nordheim, i. 108-110, 113, 116, 
 119, 124, 127-130, 134, 138, 325, .328. 
 Otto of St. Blaise, i. 261, 262. 
 Otto of Schweinfurth, ii. 150. 
 Otto of Weimar, i. 317. 
 Otto of \Yittelsbach, i. 211, 326; ii. 
 
 235 n. 
 Otto, half-brother of William of the 
 North March, i. 107. 
 
302 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Ottobeueru, i. 29S ; ii. 76. 
 
 Ottocar II. the Victorious, Duke of 
 
 Austria and Styria, 12o2; King of 
 
 Bohemia, 1253 ; Duke of Carinthia 
 
 and Carniola, 1259, ii. 47. 
 Ottocar IV. of Styria, ii. 38, 39, 
 
 40. 
 Ottokar von Horneck, i. 249. 
 Outlawry, 171, 175, 190, 210. 
 Oxford, ii. 92. 
 
 Paeirico, Fra, ii. 265. 
 
 Paderborn, i. 77, 100, 104, 114, 321 ; 
 
 ii. 102 n. 
 Padua, ii. 175, 179, 259. 
 Palaces in Italy, ii. 241. 
 Palatinate, i. 152, 262, 298, 299. 
 Palermo, i. 154, 155; ii. 120, 167, 178, 
 
 196, 263, 4. 
 Palermo, Customs of, ii. 191 ». 
 Palestine, i. 142. 
 
 Palsgraves or Counts Palatine of the 
 Khine. 
 
 Jurisdiction of, i. 183 n. 
 
 Vote at imperial elections, i. 222, 
 224, 225. 
 
 Origin of the idea that they have 
 jurisdiction over the king, i. 226, 
 227. 
 Pandulf, ii. 259. 
 Pannonia, i. 49, 65. 
 Parma, ii. 176, 231, 259. 
 Paris, i. 42, 252 ; ii. 86, 92. 
 Pascal II., ii. 102, 103, 212-214. 
 Pascal III., i. 30; ii. 104. 
 Passau, i. 62, 273 ; ii. 28, 31, 38, 41, 
 
 44, 45, 47, 48, 52 «, 76, 131m. 
 Paterines, The, ii. 193. 
 Paterno, ii. 203. 
 Patri, ii. 196. 
 Patricians, 16. 
 
 Patrimony of St. Peter, ii. 59, 250. 
 Paul the Deacon, i. 20. 
 Pavia, i. 23, 34; ii. 68, 69, 94, 95, 137, 
 
 141, 142, 177, 232, 242 re, 247, 257, 
 
 258)1. 
 Pavia, Jurisprudence of, ii. 165 n. 
 Pavia, Ordinance of, ii. 230. 
 Pechlarn, ii. 26. 
 Peerage, Principle of, in England and 
 
 Germany, i. 177 ff. 
 
 Personal law. Late survival of, in Ger- 
 many, i. 173 «. 
 Pertestadt, ii. 101. 
 Perugia, ii. 225, 227. 
 Peter Damiani, ii. 100, 100 n. 
 Peter de la Vigne, ii. Ill, 168, 265, 
 
 267 m. 
 Peter of Ebulo, ii. 258. 
 Peter of Tusculum, ii. 214. 
 Petrus Crassus, i. 191. 
 Petrus Eaveunas, ii. 165. 
 Pfcdbiirgers, i. 208. 
 Phalaris, i. 26. 
 
 Philip of Cologne, i. 143; ii. 107, 108. 
 Philip of Hesse, 267. 
 Philip of Swabia. 
 
 Coalition of Cologne and Welfs 
 against, i. 148, 330. 
 
 Dissipates the Swabian domain, i. 
 220, 262. 
 
 Municipal policy in Germany, i. 
 286. 
 
 Subsidy for the Holy Land, i. 294. 
 
 A sentence of his court, ii. 50 n. 
 
 His election set aside, ii. 60. 
 
 Present at ecclesiastical elections, 
 ii. 70. 
 
 Concessions to the Church, ii. 72-76. 
 
 Support of the princes, ii. 121, 122. 
 
 His murder, ii. 128. 
 
 Duke of Tuscany, ii. 241. 
 
 Poetry at his court, ii. 260. 
 Philip I. of France, i. 123 n. 
 Philip IV. (le Bel) of France, ii. 62. 
 Piacenza, i. 154; ii. 153, 175, 237, 243, 
 
 245. 
 Piedmont, ii. 137. 
 Piere de la Caravana, ii. 268. 
 Pierleoni, The, ii. 212, 215. 
 Picts, i. 82. 
 
 Pilgrim of Cologne, ii. 233. 
 Pilgrim of Passau, i. 53 n ; ii. 84. 
 Pipe Rolls, The, i. 186. 
 Pippin the Short, i. 27, 28, 32, 60, 62, 
 
 63, 71, 77, 307, 309 ; ii. 67, 140. 
 Pippin of Heristal, i. 63. 
 Pisa, i. 153 ; ii. 176, 215, 266, 268. 
 Pistoia, ii. 241. 
 Placita regalia, i. 212. 
 Plato, i. 13, 42. 
 
INDEX 
 
 303 
 
 Pleichfeld, i. 132. 
 
 Pleissen, i. 152, 262. 
 
 Plon, ii. 17. 
 
 Po, The, ii. 223. 
 
 Podestats, Origin of, ii. 244, 24.5. 
 
 Pohlde, Annals of, 181. 
 
 Poland, ii. 3, S, 9. 
 
 Poland, Duke of, ii. 6. 
 
 Poles, i. 102, 114; ii. 15, 24. 
 
 Polypliques, i. 259, 307. 
 
 Pomerania, ii. 11, 13, 15, 19, 21, 83. 
 
 Pomeranians, i. 102. 
 
 Pontigny, i. 34. 
 
 Poppo of Bamberg, ii. SO. 
 
 Poppo of Brixen, ii. 204. 
 
 Poppo of Trfeves, ii. S8. 
 
 Porto, Bishop of, ii. 210. 
 
 Posen, ii. 8. 
 
 Prague, ii. 92, 102 ?(. 
 
 Prato, ii. 163 m, 241. 
 
 Precaria, i. 281, 282, 283, 284, 291. 
 
 Prefecture of Rome, ii. 216. 
 
 Premonstratensians, ii. 84. 
 
 Prerogative of kings, 189. 
 
 Pribislav of Brandenburg, ii. 21. 
 
 Pribislav of Nordalbingia, ii. 12. 
 
 Priemburg, i. 76. 
 
 Prifilerjiiim 7ninus, i. 314, 315 ; ii. 44. 
 
 Probus, i. 69. 
 
 Procopius, i. 158 ; ii. 5. 
 
 Professional justice, i. 183. 
 
 Protimesis, Law of, ii. 185. 
 
 Proven9al, ii. 266, 270. 
 
 Provence, i. 220, 288 ; ii. 137, 263, 
 
 266. 
 Prudentius, i. 43. 
 Prilm, i. 259, 267 ; ii. 65 n. 
 Prussia, i. 264 ; ii. 5, 11, 22. 
 Ptolemy of Tusculum, ii. 214. 
 
 Quadi, 58. 
 
 Quedlinburg, i. 93, 100, 268, 320 ; ii. 
 
 92. 
 Quia Emplorts, ii. 159. 
 
 Raab Forest, ii. 30. 
 Rabanus Maurus, ii. 78, 83. 
 Radagcesus, i. 52. 
 Radicofani, ii. 241. 
 
 Radigost, ii. 4. 
 
 Ragewin, ii. 87. 
 
 Raimbaut de la Vaoqueiias, ii. 269 n. 
 
 Rainald of Cologne, i. 141, 142, 341 ; 
 ii. 71, 83, 104, 237, 238, 258 «. 
 
 Eanulf Glanvill, i. 171. 
 
 Ratchis, King of Lombardy, i. 158. 
 
 Ratherius of Verona, ii. 89, 138, 259. 
 
 Pvatisbon, cf. Regensburg. 
 
 Ratzeburg, i. 142 ; ii. 18, 19, 21, 71. 
 
 Ravenna, i. 22, 23, 191, 288; ii. 138, 
 230, 232. 
 
 Ravenna, Treaty with, ii. 167 n. 
 
 Ravensburg, i. 173. 
 
 Records, Judicial, i. 184, 185. 
 
 Redamatio ad regem, i. 163. 
 
 Regenger, i. 120. 
 
 Regensburg (Ratisbon), i. 55, 61, 65, 
 132, 219, 253, 259, 268, 269, 273, 
 288, 293, 298, 300, 326, 336 ; ii. 27, 
 31, 34, 35, 3/«, 44, 53, 88, 89, 102 n. 
 
 Reggio, ii. 176, 2.a, 235, 244, 265 «. 
 
 Regino, Continuation of, i. 47. 
 
 Regino of Priim, ii. 83. 
 
 Regnitz, i. 74. 
 
 Reichenau, i. 160 re; ii. 87. 
 
 Reichenhall, i. 302 n. 
 
 Reichersberg, ii. 114. 
 
 Reichsgut and liausgut. Distinction 
 
 between, i. 252, 253. 
 Reinfelden, Rudolph of, cf. Rudolph. 
 Remus, i. 26. 
 Rethra, ii. 4, 12, 
 Rhenish towns, i. 132, 148. 
 Rhine, i. 69, 125, 131 ; ii. 92. 
 
 Rhythmus de Ottone et Heinrico i 
 98)1. 
 
 Richard I. of England, 274, 281, 330- 
 
 ii. .38. 
 Richard of Capua, ii. 208. 
 Richard of Caserta, ii. 252. 
 Richard of Cornwall, i. 220, 2'''5 281 
 
 289 ; ii. 91, 135. 
 Richer of Leno, ii. 152 n. 
 Richard of Teate, ii. 252. 
 Richerzeche, i. 287. 
 Richinza, wife of Lothair of Supplin- 
 
 berg, i. 134, 318 ; ii. 20. 
 Richinza of Werla, i. 109. 
 Riedmarch, The, ii. 27. 
 
304 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Rieti, ii. 137. 
 
 Einaldo d'Aquino, ii. 265 n. 
 
 Sipiuirian latv, i. 73, 145, 158 ; ii. 
 
 140. 
 Robbio, Lords of, ii. 16in. 
 Robert of France, ii. 94, 9o, 151. 
 Robert Guiscard, ii. 207 n. 
 Eodel, ii. 28. 
 
 Roffrid of San Germane, ii. 179, 191. 
 Roger II. of Sicily, i. 153; ii. 1S2-184, 
 
 200. 
 
 Roland, i. 29, 277. 
 
 Roland, ambassador of Henry IV., ii. 
 210. 
 
 Roland, Cardinal, cf. Alexander III. 
 
 Romagna, ii. 232, 235, 237, 242, 249, 
 
 271. 
 Roman law, 170, 191, 199, 206; ii. 
 
 195. 
 Roman law in Germany, i. 169-171, 
 
 184 m, 192?)., 193 71. 
 Roman and Lombard schools of law, 
 
 ii. 142-4. 
 Romanus Senior, ii. 185. 
 Rome, Senate of, ii. 172. 
 Romuald of Salerno, ii. 254. 
 Romulus, i. 15, 16. 
 Roncaglia, i. 150, 152, 175, 205, 243 ; 
 
 ii. 146, 158, 1.59, 161, 162, 181, 235 n, 
 
 245, 247. 
 Rossetti, ii. 270 n. 
 Rotbaris, ii. 140, 142. 
 Rothenburg, Counts of, i. 77 n. 
 Rothenburg, Landvogtei of, i. 263 n. 
 Rouen, ii. 74. 
 Rudiger, i. 53. 
 
 Rudolph II. of Burgundy, i. 43. 
 Rudolph of Hapsburg (Count) , i. 220 n , 
 
 262 71. 
 Rudolph of Hapsburg (Emperor), i. 
 
 290, 294 ; ii. 54. 
 Rudolph of Rheinfelden, Duke of 
 
 Swabia, i. 118, 120, 125, 131, 132, 
 
 133, 225, 226, 318, 323 ; ii. 56. 
 Rixgen, ii. 4, 10, 12. 
 Ruggieri d'Amici, ii. 265 n. 
 Rugians, ii. 19. 
 Ruotger of Cologne, i. 43 n. 
 Rupert of Freising, i. 146 n. 
 Rupert of Worms, i. 63. 
 Russia, ii. 17. 
 
 Rusticianus of Pisa, ii. 2QS. 
 
 Rusticus, ii. 212. 
 
 Rutilius Kamatianus, i. 17; ii. 262. 
 
 Saale, i. 82, S3, 113; ii. 3, 6, 8. 
 
 Saalfeld, 129. 
 
 Sachsempiegel, i. 145, 170, 171 h, 214, 
 
 215, 222, 224, 226, 264, 265, 272, 
 
 318 ; ii. 58, .59. 
 Sachsnot, i. 84. 
 Salerno, ii. 92, 188, 259, 264. 
 Salian law, i. 160 m, ii. 140. 
 Salz, i. 76, 291. 
 Salzburg, i. 61 n, 63, 264, 29S ; ii. 44, 
 
 48, 102 it, 104, 131 n. 
 Samlanders, i. 102. 
 Saracens, i. 125: ii. 136, 137, 138, 169, 
 
 183, 193, 265 >i. 
 Sarzana, ii. 238. 
 Sassi, The, ii. 217. 
 Saumur, i. 82. 
 Savounieres, 36. 
 Savoy, ii. 163 )j, 242. 
 Saxons, 42, 52, 71, S3, and pa.^dm. 
 Saxon colonies, i. 71, 77 m. 
 Saxon law, 73, 102, 104, 197. 
 Saxon wars under Henry IV. , i. 329. 
 Saxons, ii. 65, 67, 203. 
 Saxony, 42, 52, 56, 86, 87, and jJo-s-siHi, 
 
 260, 261, 264, 297, 306; ii. 48. 
 Saxony, Duke of, i. 225, 227. 
 Scabinate, The, ii. 143. 
 Scdbini or Schoffen, i. 163, 190 n. 
 Scandinavian law. Traces of, in Sicily, 
 
 ii. 184 n. 
 Schauenburg, i. 297. 
 Scheyern, i. 301 n. 
 Schlesvig, i. 102 ; ii. 6. 
 Schoningen, i. 320. 
 School of the palace in Saxony, 93. 
 Schopenharfne, i. 245. 
 Schidtheiss, i. 190 re, 246. 
 
 Schioabenspiegel, i. 145, 210, 225, 226. 
 
 236, 291; ii. 52;;, 164. 
 Schweinfurt, Margrave of, i. 77. 
 Scot, Michael, ii. 264. 
 Segni, ii. 208. 
 Selingenstadt, ii. 95 n. 
 
 Semnones,i. 68, 69. 
 
INDEX 
 
 305 
 
 Sententia de non cUieTiandis principati- 
 
 bus, 218. 
 Servatus Lupus, ii. 91. 
 Sicily, i. 151, 153, 311 ; ii. 60, 105, 
 
 116, 118, 120, 129, 194, 196, 200, 
 
 207, 261, 264, 265-267. 
 SicUy, Constitutions of, ii. 169. 
 Siebenhofen, ii. 14 n. 
 Sieg, i. 82. 
 
 Siegfried of Mainz, ii. 100, 123. 
 Sienna, ii. 181, 206, 240, 243. 
 Siennese, ii. 271. 
 Sigonius, ii. 152 ra. 
 Silesia, i. 264. 
 Sitten, ii. 71. 
 
 Slaves, 27, 61, 6S, 69, 71, 77, 101, 102, 
 124, 125 ; ii. 2, 3. 
 
 Sleidan, the historian of Charles V. , 
 
 i. 19 n. 
 Slovenes, ii. 4. 
 Soest, i. 291. 
 
 Solomon, Bishop of Constance, 72. 
 Sorbs, ii. 3, 10. 
 Sordello, ii. 255, 269. 
 Sorrento, ii. 189. 
 Spanish scholars, i. 42, 
 Specht, ii. 85. 
 Spire, i. 259, 269 ; ii. 76, 77, 85,'102)i, 
 
 121-3,13171,133. 
 Spitz, ii. 28. 
 Spoleto, ii. 59, 121, 139, 151 n, 232, 
 
 241, 244, 250, 256, 265 n. 
 St. Angelo, ii. 212, 215, 220. 
 St. Arnulf, House of, 156, 158. 
 St. Bale, ii. 94. 
 St. Blaise, i. 142. 
 St. Denis, Cathedral of, i. 29 n. 
 St. Emmeran, i. 298. 
 St. Florian, ii. 28. 
 St. Gall, ii. 87. 
 St. Gall, Annalist of, i. 198. 
 St. Hippolytus, ii. 31. 
 St. Maria del Lavoriero, ii. 222. 
 St. Miniato, ii. 240, 241. 
 St. Peter's, ii. 220, 222, 223, 238, 256. 
 St. Polten, ii. 2S. 
 St. Salvator, Abbot of, ii. 181. 
 Stade, ii. 7. 
 
 Stadingi, ii. 134, 172 m. 
 Stefano da Messina, ii. 265 n. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 Steier, ii. 40 n. 
 
 Steinfeld, ii. 92. 
 
 Stephen II. of Burgundy, i. 338. 
 
 Stephen III., i. 44. 
 
 Stephen IV., i. 31, 32. 
 
 Stephen IX., ii. 205. 
 
 Stephen of Hungary, i. 230, 231 ; ii. 
 
 30. 
 Stookaoh, i. 72. 
 Strassburg, i. 196, 259, 272, 286, 287, 
 
 294, 302 k, 320, 341 ; ii. 75, 76, 102 n, 
 
 131 «, 133. 
 Strassburg, Bishops of, i. 72, 119. 
 Strassburg, Oath of, i. 54. 
 Sturm, i. 76. 
 
 Styria, i. 264, 315; ii. 34, 38, 39 n, 40, 
 44, 45, 49. 
 
 Suarez, ii. 57. 
 
 Subiaco, ii. 202. 
 
 Suger, ii. 83. 
 
 Supplinbergs, 138. 
 
 Sutri, Synod of, ii. 204. 
 
 Svantovit, ii. 4. 
 
 Swabia, i. 55, 66, 69, 70-72, 119, 132- 
 134, 204, 261, 262, 267, 268, 288, 
 299, 323, 326 ; ii. 3, 75, 272. 
 
 Swabian settlements in Thuringia, i. 
 
 Swabians, ii. 134. 
 
 Sweden, i. 269 ; ii. 2, 17, 83, 97. 
 
 Swerin, ii. 19. 
 
 Switzerland, i. 69. 
 
 Sword, Knights of the, ii. 22. 
 
 Tacitus, i. 48, 49, 68. 
 
 Tagliacozzo, ii. 62, 78. 
 
 Tancred, ii. 182. 
 
 Tarentaise, ii. 74, 160. 
 
 Tarentum, ii. 228. 
 
 TassUo in., i. 60, 61, 62. 
 
 Tebaldi, The, ii. 217. 
 
 Tegernsee, i. 298; ii. 29 )i, 87, 110 », 
 
 131 n. 
 Terence, i. 43 ; ii. 89. 
 Terminus, i. 14. 
 Terui, ii. 230. 
 Teutonic order, ii. 22, 23. 
 Theodora, ii. 35 n. 
 Theodoric, or Dietrich of Bern, i. 17, 
 
 18, 25, 51, 53, 61 ; ii. 260. 
 
3o6 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Theodosius, i. 20, 26, 191, 192. 
 
 
 Ubertini, The, ii. 243. 
 
 Theophaaes, i. 20, 25 ; ii. 262. 
 
 
 Udalric of Weimar, i. 329. 
 
 Theophano, wife of Otto I., i. 94 
 
 ; ii. 
 
 Udo of the North March, i. 113. 
 
 202. 
 
 
 Uffizi, The, ii. 274. 
 
 Theudebert the Frank, i. 60. 
 
 
 Ugolini, The, ii. 176 », 271 n. 
 
 Theuderic the Frank, i. 72. 
 
 
 Ulm, i. U2, 144, 202, 291, 292, 337 : 
 
 Theutbald of Alamannia, i. 70. 
 
 
 ii. 53. 
 
 Thietmar (or Dietmar) the Billung, 
 
 Ulrich of Halberstadt, i. 143. 
 
 i. 105, 106. 
 
 
 Umbria, ii. 261, 265. 
 
 Thietmar (or Dietmar), the historian, 
 
 Unstrut, i. 91, 96, 113, 124. 
 
 i. 30, 101 ; ii. 10, 67. 
 
 
 Unwan of Bremen, i. 104, 105. 
 
 Thodulo, ii. 20. 
 
 
 Uuwan of Hamburg, i. 92. 
 
 Thomas of Savoy, ii. 262. 
 
 
 Upstalbom, i. 297. 
 
 Thorn, ii. 22. 
 
 
 Urban III., ii. 105, 107, 108, 109. 
 
 Thuringia, i. 119, 122, 128, 137, 
 
 193, 
 
 Urban IV., i. 225, 226 ; ii. 62. 
 
 264, 297, 317, 318 ; ii. 16, 102. 
 
 
 Uri, i. 262 m. 
 
 Thuringians, i. 56, 72, 73, 110, 
 
 114, 
 
 Ursini, The, ii. 217. 
 
 116, 127. 
 
 
 Cfrtheilsckelten, i. 188, 189. 
 
 Thuringian Forest, i. 116, 124. 
 
 
 Uto, Count, i. 313. 
 
 Tiepoli of Venice, ii. 262. 
 
 
 Utrecht, i. 42, 43, 277 ; ii. 14, 102. 
 
 Toledo, ii. 67. 
 
 
 
 Toul, i. 268; ii. 102 ». 
 
 
 Val de Grace, The, ii. 185 m. 
 
 Toulouse, ii. 41. 
 
 
 Valentinian, i. 192. 
 
 Tractatiislde Legibus Angliae, i. 
 
 170, 
 
 Valvassores, Revolt of, ii. 154. 
 
 186. 
 
 
 Vannius, i. 57, 58 m. 
 
 Trade, i. 125. 
 
 
 Vatican decree of 1059, ii. 125, 208^ 
 
 Traise, ii. 28. 
 
 
 209, 216. 
 
 Trent, i. 265 n. 
 
 
 Venerabilem, Bull, i. 225. 
 
 Trent, ii. 165)1,250, 251. 
 
 
 Venice, i. 154, 280; ii. 27, 143, 
 
 Trepano, iL 196. 
 
 
 262. 
 
 Treves, i. 42, 126, 198, ^'', 223, 
 
 225, 
 
 Venice, Peace of, ii. 223, 224. 
 
 272 n; ii. 2, 80, 93, 102 », 104, 
 
 105, 
 
 Verberie, Synod of, i. 63 n. 
 
 106, 111 71. 
 
 
 Vercelli, ii. 230. 
 
 Treves measure, i. 272 n . 
 
 
 Verden, i. 104 m, 135, 138, 321; ii. 
 
 Treviso, ii. 175, 250. 
 
 
 102 n. 
 
 Trevisan March, ii. 177, 250. 
 
 
 Verdun, i. 35, 51. 
 
 Tribur, ii. 273. 
 
 
 Vermandois, i. 243 )i. 
 
 Troy, Games of, i. 18. 
 
 
 Verneuil, Synod of, i. 63 n. 
 
 Trucci, ii. 271 n. 
 
 
 Verona, i. 33; ii. 7, 107, 175, 2.32, 
 
 Truce of God, i. 200-202. 
 
 
 250, 258 m. 
 
 Tulln, ii. 27, 49. 
 
 
 Veronese March, ii. 230. 
 
 Turin, ii. 150 n, 242, 243, 258 n. 
 
 
 Versailles, ii. 273. 
 
 Turpin, Chronicle of, i. 29, 30. 
 
 
 Vicelin, ii. 12. 
 
 Tuscan officials, ii. 241-243. 
 
 
 Vioenza, ii. 175, 250, 258 re. 
 
 Tuscan patrimony, ii. 241. 
 
 
 Victor II. , ii. 205. 
 
 Tuscany, ii. 120, 23.5, 227, 238, 
 
 240, 
 
 Victor III., ii. 259. 
 
 242, 244, 249, 250, 270, 271. 
 
 
 Victor IV., ii. 221, 238. 
 
 Tuscany, Margrave of, ii. 151 n. 
 
 
 Vidal Pier, ii. 268. 
 
 Tnsculum, ii. 208, 221 , 224. 
 
 
 Vienna, i. 291, 293 ; ii. 27, 29, 38, 41, 
 
 Tyrol, i. 264, 267. 
 
 
 43, 45, 46, 51, 52, 53. 
 
INDEX 
 
 307 
 
 Viennese Forest, ii. 28, 29. 
 Virgil, i. 16 ; ii. 266. 
 Visigothorum, Lex Antiqua, i. 62. 
 Visigoths, i. .333. 
 Vistula, i. 125 ; ii. 3, 22. 
 Viterbo, ii. 22.5, 241, 251. 
 Vogtding, i. 320. 
 Vohburg, i. 302n. 
 Volmar, ii. 107, 108. 
 Volterra, ii. 240. 
 
 Waohau, ii. 28. 
 
 Wagria, ii. 6. 
 
 "Waitz, i. 320. 
 
 Walafrid Strabo, i. 16; ii. 91. 
 
 Walbeck, i. 320. 
 
 Waldemar I. of Denmark, i. 142 ; ii. 
 
 19. 
 Walter of Brienne, ii. 62 n. 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide, i. 73 ; ii. 
 
 260. 
 Wartburg, i. 73 n. 
 Wartemberg, i. 301 n. 
 Weimar, i. 1.35. 
 Weimars, Family of, i. 329. 
 Weinsberg, i. 332. 
 Weisthvmer, The, i. 187. 
 
 Welf I. of Bavaria, i. 110, 120, 131, 
 
 132, ,326, .327. 
 Welf II. of Bavaria, i. 327. 
 Welf III., i. 173. 
 Welf IV., i. 173. 
 
 Welfesholze, Battle of, i. 135, 329. 
 Welfs, The, i. 320; ii. 127, 134. 
 
 Welfs and Wibelins, i. 253, 325-332; 
 ii. 78, 91. 
 
 Wendish-Apenburg, ii. 3. 
 Wendish crusade, ii. 13. 
 
 Wends, i. 73, 76, 102, 103, 144, 147, 
 
 276. 
 Wends, ii. 6. 
 Wenzel, i. 227. 
 Wenzel of Bohemia, i. 224. 
 Werla, i. 99. 
 
 Werner of BoUand, i. 183. 
 Werner of Magdeburg, i. 113. 
 Weser, i. 85, 143. 
 Wettin, Family of, i. 318, 329. 
 
 Westphalia, i. 83, 84, 103, 105, 122, 
 
 132, 141, 150, 244 n, 297 ; ii. 15, 16, 
 
 2.3Sn, 278. 
 Wichmann of Magdeburg, i. 141 ; ii. 
 
 20, 70, 71, 83. 
 Wichmann, the Saxon rebel, i. 97, 
 
 341. 
 Wide, ii. 139. 
 Widsich, The, i. 83. 
 
 Widukind, the historian, i. 46, 95, 
 
 341 ; ii. 89. 
 Widukind, the Saxon leader, i. 88. 
 Wienfr Stadrechthuch, ii. 52k. 
 Wikes, Thomas, i. 281 n. 
 Wiid/angrechf , i. 276. 
 William I. (the Bad), of Sicily, i. 153; 
 
 ii. 193 n. 
 William II. (the Good) of Sicily, i. 
 154, 155m; ii. 165, 182, 185, 198. 
 
 William I. of England, i. 123 )!, 238. 
 William of Hirschau, ii. 83, 88, 90. 
 William of Holland, i. 148, 220, 289 ; 
 
 ii. 134, 135. 
 William Konig, i. 114. 
 William of Luneburg, i. 144 71. 
 William of the Xorth March, i. 102, 
 
 107. 
 William the Silent, ii. 58. 
 William IV. of Weimar, i. 317. 
 Willigis of Mainz, ii. 80 n, S3. 
 Wiltzes, i. 105, 107, 114 ; ii. 2, 7, 8, 
 
 10. 
 Winnies, ii. 9. 
 Winzenburgers, i. 329. 
 
 Wipo, i. 197 «, 198 ?i, 199 », 337; ii. 
 
 260. 
 Witiges, i. 18. 
 Wittelsbachers, i. 329. 
 Wittemberg, University of, ii. 165. 
 Wolfgang of Kegensburg, ii. 88. 
 WoUin, i. 12.5 ; ii. 4. 
 Worms, i. 75. 118, 119, 121, 1.30, 175, 
 
 192, 196, 220, 269, 271, 27S, 285, 
 
 288, 298, 321 ; ii. 71, 73, 75, 85, 86, 
 
 98, 122, 131 n, 1.33 7t. 
 Worms, Annals of, i. 290. 
 Worms, Concordat of, i. 137 ; ii. 11, 
 
 69, 70, 103, 104 H. 
 Wratislaw of Bohemia, ii. 32. 
 Wulfhilde, i. 327. 
 Wuotan, i. 84. 
 
3o8 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL EMPIRE 
 
 Wurm, Nicholas, i. 170, 
 
 206 71. 
 
 
 Zara, i. 280. 
 
 
 Wurzburg, i. 259, 263 m, 278 «, 
 ii. 28, 37, 65, 75, 76, 102n, 104 
 131 n. 
 
 299; 
 124, 
 
 Zasius, i. 184 ». 
 Zeitz, L 114, 316 
 102 n. 
 
 ii. 6, 8, 10, 70, 
 
 Xanten, i. 82 ; ii. 84. 
 
 
 
 Zeno, i. 114. 
 Zorgi, Bartolomeo, 
 Zurich, i. 196, 199. 
 
 ii. 269 n. 
 
 Zahringers, i. 291, 320. 
 
 
 
 Zwentibold, i. 268. 
 
 
 Is- 
 
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