CHAPTER XVIII

THE STRENGTH AND THE WEAKNESS OF ROME

One chief effect of the growing power of the French king over his nobility was the gradual breaking up of the feudal system throughout the greater part of France. Philip sent bailiffs to collect his taxes, instead of receiving them through the hands of the lords, and we may look on this as a striking sign of the changing tunes. He formed, moreover, the beginnings of a standing army. In the extreme south of France, in Aquitaine and Provence, the feudal conditions lasted longer, but there, too, feudalism was crushed out after the so-called Crusade against the Albigenses, the people of Albi in the south of France, who held certain religious views at variance with those of the Church. Moreover, they professed themselves offended by the life and manners of the monastic orders and other clerics. It was the very offence which caused the Reformation later; but these would-be reformers of Albi were too few to win success, and their so-called "heresy" was stamped out with cruel severity.

The troubadours, together with the poetic language of "oc," passed away for ever with the feudal society which had made their manner of life possible. We have come to some very dark pages of our story. In the course of the perpetual fights between the feudal lords themselves, and between combinations of the lords and the king, the one side or the other, finding its own {162} forces failing, hired bands of mercenary soldiers to aid them. When the little wars were over, these hirelings got their dismissal. Perhaps they did, or perhaps they did not, get their pay. If not, they were likely to take its equivalent, and more, from any that had not the force to withstand them, and even if they were paid for past service, what were they to do on their dismissal? What they did was to wander up and down the country, offering their service to any who cared to hire it, and in the meantime supporting themselves by high-handed robbery and violence.

The Scandinavian nations and the Swiss furnished most of these mercenaries, and they were the scourge and terror of all Europe in the Middle Ages. It is very largely the insecurity of life and property due to their numbers and cruelties that so darkens the record of this period of the story.

This particular trouble was one from which the island position of England kept her fortunately free, but she had her own troubles, more than enough. The English barons, in their disgust at their treatment by John, had invited the son of King Philip of France to come over and claim the English throne. He actually was in England, with a French army, at the time of John's death; but a heavy defeat at Lincoln sent him home again.

John's death, in fact, seems to have caused the support of the barons to swing back yet again to the rightful heir to the Crown. Amongst other degradations which he had brought on his country John had sworn fealty to the Pope for his possession of England and Ireland. Our islands had, therefore, in theory, become a possession of the Pope held by the English king as his vassal, and few things in the whole of our great story are more remarkable than the power which the Popes continued to wield over all Europe, except its eastern fringe, at the very time when the position of the Popes {163} themselves was so very insecure at Rome that we actually find them, not only unable to enforce their authority in the city, but now and then compelled to fly from it for their own personal safety.

[Sidenote: The cities of Italy]

It is very interesting to see what happened in the country which we now call Italy, because it was something that was rather different from that which happened elsewhere. It was different just because there was this contest between the Pope and the Emperor going on all the while, complicating the already difficult position caused by the feudal system.

It is necessary, for the understanding of what happened, that we should free our minds of any idea of a single country, a unity, called Italy, as we know Italy now. There was no such idea in men's minds at the time reached by our story, and we can understand what happened much better if we can get back to their point of view.

For them there was the Emperor, with his very extensive but rather vague claim over a good deal of what Charlemagne had made his own. Then the feudal system had created what were practically independent provinces in the north of Italy as elsewhere. And then there came in the Pope, the power of the Church. And the power of the Church had its principal political influence, as regards Italy, in this: that just as at Rome the Pope, who was originally no more than the Bishop of Rome, had come to have almost, if not quite, sovereign power in the city and its neighbourhood, so too in other cities the bishops began to exercise, not so much sovereign power as the power of chief magistrates in addition to their own spiritual power. Important cities, like Florence, Milan, and Pisa, claimed an independence which the Emperor found it his best policy to concede to them. They were fortified with walls which the inhabitants were well able to defend at need. The feudal lords {164} at the same time had their castles in the country, outside the towns.

There had been trouble and even war about the "investitures," that is to say the appointments to the high offices of the Church; and when this was settled, it went far to free the Church from the civil authority, but at the same time it largely freed the civil power from the Church. The bishops were succeeded by civil officers, called consuls, as rulers in the cities. Then the feudal lords began to come into the cities and live within the walls, and as they were the richest and probably the most able men, they began to be chosen by the citizens as the chief officers. From that to the establishment of themselves as tyrants and despots in the cities--enlightened and art-loving despots, generally--the step was short. Often the chief families were at deadly feud with each other for years and years. Remember the Montagues and Capulets, of whom we read in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," in Verona.

[Sidenote: Frederick Barbarossa]

City also fought against city about claims on territory, rights of way on roads and rivers, and many other points. And then came a threat from without which forced the cities of Northern Italy to come together and form a compact, or combination, known as the Lombard League. The threat came from that Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (_i.e._ Red-beard) who was Emperor at the date of that not altogether fortunate third Crusade in which King Richard of the Lion Heart took a leading part. The settlement, in 1122, of the trouble about the investitures, had put the appointment of the Pope into the hands of an Italian College of Cardinals, as we have noticed already, whereas he had hitherto been appointed by a German Emperor. There had been the rather ridiculous position of the Emperor appointing the Pope and the Pope anointing and consecrating the Emperor. And now, {165} although the Pope and Emperor had been of much help to each other in the years before, the Pope from this time forward began to take his stand as an Italian, appointed by Italians, and thus to be in opposition to the German Emperor. The Italians, besides, had been largely increasing in population all these years.

The Italians, moreover, and especially the great cities of North Italy, like Milan and Florence, had been growing more and more independent. Several of the emperors had not paid them much attention, but this Frederick the Red-beard was more aggressive than his predecessors. He attempted to assert a sovereignty like that of the Carolingian emperors--that is, the emperors of Charles's dynasty--over Italy, both north and south. It was the cities of the north, the Lombard cities, that he would naturally encounter first, and these, by forming themselves into this Lombard League, proved too strong for him. They fought him, they forced him to give up his attempt to bring them again into subjection under the German imperial rule. He tried again and again, but again and again they beat him. In its immediate purpose the League had this success; but it did not bring the States belonging to it under one government. They still remained independent of each other, and after Frederick had withdrawn and the need for union was not pressing they went back to their old feuds and fighting among themselves. Besides these smaller differences, there arose a constant and large division throughout all Italy between the two parties that had the names of Guelph and Ghibelline respectively. Originally these had been names of German families--of the Welfs of Bavaria and of the Waiblingen of Swabia--but in course of time, in Italy, they lost all their first meaning. Guelph came to mean the democratic party, favouring the rule of the people, and with this party the Pope was identified. The Ghibellines were for the rule of the {166} high-born rich under the sovereignty of the Emperor. A little later we find the great families of Orsini and Colonna opposed as leaders of Guelph and Ghibelline respectively. There was this constant unrest, but Italy was not seriously troubled again by the claims of the Emperor for thirty years after the death of the red-bearded Frederick. After that interval another Frederick, grandson of the Red-beard, became Emperor, and he again tried to impress his sovereignty over these cities. He had some successes at the start, but in the end he was repulsed quite as decidedly as his grandfather.

As the result of this last defeat of the imperial force, a permanent treaty--a treaty which actually did last--was drawn up defining the rights of the Emperor, and limiting them very narrowly, over Italy. The cities of the League were ensured in their practically complete independence; and a like independence was given to the Tuscan city of Florence though she was not of the League. But still it was as separate city States that their independence was defined. There was still no unity of government.

Now among the cities of the Lombard League, as it was originally formed, Venice was included. It is curious, however, that the name of Venice does not appear in the treaty made with Frederick Barbarossa.

If you will look at the map of Italy you will see, on either side of its long leg, two cities that were great seaports--on the western side Genoa and on the eastern side Venice. Most of the cities of the north of Italy are inland cities. These two, exceptionally, are on the sea.

[Sidenote: The power of Venice]

But the importance of the two seaports differed greatly, just because they were on opposite sides of the long leg. Venice, looking eastward, was the port to which came, most naturally and easily, all the merchandise and traffic from the East. Through {167} Venice it was distributed throughout the West. This fact gave Venice a great position. It also incited the Venetians to be great sea-goers and great merchants. They became both enterprising and rich. They had a considerable navy. They became more powerful than any other of the States of Italy; and just because this eastward-facing position made their interests rather different from those of the rest, they therefore came to stand rather apart from the others. Their form of government was rather different. It was perhaps better adapted for a State in which the great men were merchants and shipowners. This difference may possibly account for the name of Venice not appearing in the treaty with the Emperor Frederick Red-beard.

Venice, thus powerful already, became far the greatest naval power in the Mediterranean as a result of the fourth Crusade. Really this so-called Crusade was not directed by the Church at all. It was more of a commercial undertaking than a spiritual adventure. Egypt, which was in the hands of the Moslems, was its object, therefore its forces had to go by sea. Venice furnished money and transport.

Just at this moment the rightful Emperor of the East had been dethroned by his brother, who had usurped his power. The Crusaders, even from the time of the first Crusade, never thought that they met with fair treatment from the Eastern Emperor, for whom they fought. Perhaps they were glad enough now to take up the cause of the rightful but deposed Emperor. Venice, moreover, had her own private cause of offence with Constantinople. The result was that the Crusade was turned aside from its first object, which was Cairo, in Egypt, and was directed against Constantinople. Constantinople fell to their attack in 1204. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, a Norman by race and one of the leaders of the Crusade, was appointed Emperor {168} of the East, and Venice, for her share, was given the nominal sovereignty over some of the islands in the Mediterranean, thus further increasing her power. Frederick II., the grandson of Barbarossa, had come to the imperial throne with claims to an empire scarcely less than that of Charlemagne himself. For besides being Emperor, and thus King of Germany, he still had that claim on the Kingdom of Italy which the emperors had not renounced, even if they could not enforce it. His mother had been heiress of the Norman Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, on which also, therefore, he had a valid claim. Rome lay between these two territories. Moreover, this Frederick was in the succession of the rulers of Burgundy, that great province of which the King of France was nominally the overlord. The less important island Kingdom of Sardinia was his also, and by his marriage he gained the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as it was still called, though it meant only the strip of western coast of Syria and Palestine which the Turk had left to the Christian.

Probably Frederick II.'s power, extensive as it was, was quite unwieldy. Probably his authority over parts of this great extent would not have been very readily obeyed, nor very easily enforced. However that be, he really, as I have said, effected nothing against the Lombard League, which was revived, in spite of the feuds between the cities. The League, as before, had the power of the Pope on its side.

[Sidenote: Ascendancy of the Church]

One of the means by which the Pope defeated the Emperor in this struggle, and it was perhaps his strongest weapon, was by excommunicating him. Frederick had engaged to go on Crusade, the fifth Crusade, but ill-health had prevented his taking an active part in it, and the Pope gave this as the reason of his excommunication. Excommunication meant that he was denied all part in the services and sacraments of the Church in this life, and was told that his soul {169} would be lost in the world to come. It released his subjects from any necessity of obeying his commands. It put him, moreover, much in the position of an "outlawed" man, which meant that he was not under the protection of the laws of the land, so that any man could be held blameless who lifted a hand to attack him. It was a terrible power, and it was used very terribly by the Church at this time and for many centuries afterwards.

And then this Frederick, this man excommunicated by the Church, undertook the direction of the sixth Crusade. It was an extraordinary position. A Crusade was a war for the Cross, for the Church; and here was one who had been placed quite outside the fold of the Church taking the leadership in this war. But the truth is that these later Crusades were not really aimed against the infidel and the Moslem for religious reasons nearly so much as for political motives. Frederick actually did persuade, without fighting, the Turkish Sultan of Egypt to give him the sovereignty of Jerusalem.

While he thus brought back the Holy Places into the Christian Church, what he claimed to be his own territories in Europe were being invaded by the Pope's forces--a kind of "Crusade" was waged against him who was leading a most successful Crusade in the recognised sense of the term!

He returned to Europe to struggle awhile against the spiritual power; but it was too strong for him. He died in 1250. For another score or so of years Pope and Emperor, Italy and Germany, fought intermittently, with such weapons as each had, but before the beginning of the fourteenth century the Church's spiritual ascendancy prevailed over all the Western world, and Rome had been established in her papal possessions.

During much of that fourteenth century, however, {170} conditions in Rome became so disturbed that the Popes removed to Avignon in France. They removed thither in 1305 and four years later we find the Emperor acknowledged as King of the Romans. It was not for another seventy years that a Pope dared or cared to live in Rome, and even when the Papal Court did return there were for many years two Popes, one, appointed by the Italian cardinals, in Rome, another, elected by the French, in Avignon.

Yet even in the midst of these distractions and schisms, when the actual life of the Head of the Church was sometimes in danger, we still see the Church's power steadily increasing--for one reason, because, in the tumult of the times, it was the one force which knew its own purpose and pursued that purpose in all places and at all times unchangeably. By the end of the fourteenth century it stands at last supreme in its own city and country--in Rome itself. Rome as a republic exists no longer: it has become the Papal State.

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