Scholastics

The Twelfth Century

The Rise of the Lombard Cities

The next stage of the struggle was marked by the reign of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1152—1190), a talented and energetic figure who achieved success in virtually every endeavor. Barbarossa received a solid education, enjoyed reading Latin—albeit with some difficulty in speaking it—and possessed a profound knowledge of classical literature, holding a particular admiration for Roman law. He viewed himself as the heir to the Roman emperors, cherishing hopes of acquiring the same power they had wielded. However, being German, he was not well-liked in Italy. Although the Lombard cities were willing to recognize Barbarossa as their nominal overlord, they protested against his interference in their affairs, except for those cities that feared Milan and sought the emperor's protection against it. In Milan, the Patarines movement, characterized by a more or less democratic tendency, continued to thrive, and the majority (though not all) of the northern Italian cities stood in solidarity with Milan, forming a military alliance against the emperor.

Two years after Barbarossa ascended the throne, Adrian IV became pope. He was a vigorous Englishman who had previously served as a missionary in Norway; initially, their relationship was cordial, united by a common enemy. The urban populace of Rome sought independence from both the emperor and the pope, enlisting the help of the heretical saint Arnold of Brescia in their struggle. His heresy was severe: he claimed that “those priests who hold estates cannot be saved, those bishops who possess fiefs cannot be saved, and those monks who own property cannot be saved.” He was motivated by the belief that the clergy should dedicate themselves solely to spiritual matters. Despite Arnold’s reputation as a heretic, no one questioned the sincerity of his asceticism. Even St. Bernard, a fierce adversary of Arnold, remarked, “He neither eats nor drinks, but, like a devil, craves and thirsts for human blood.” The predecessor of Adrian on the papal throne had sent a letter to the emperor, complaining that Arnold supported the popular faction, which sought the establishment of elective offices for one hundred senators, two consuls, and their own emperor. Frederick, who was preparing to travel to Italy, naturally became furious. The Roman movement for communal freedoms, encouraged by Arnold, led to an uprising in which a cardinal was killed. In response, the newly elected pope Adrian placed an interdict on Rome. It was Holy Week, and superstition overwhelmed the Romans; yielding, they promised to expel Arnold. He left Rome but was captured by the emperor's forces. Arnold was burned at the stake, and his ashes were cast into the Tiber for fear that his remains would be preserved as sacred relics. After a delay caused by Frederick’s refusal to hold the pope’s reins and stirrup while he dismounted, the pope crowned the emperor in 1155 amidst popular resistance, which was suppressed in a torrent of blood.

Having dealt with the righteous man, the political actors unleashed their hostilities once more. The pope, having managed to make peace with the Normans, dared to sever ties with the emperor in 1157. The war between the emperor, on one side, and the pope and the Lombard cities, on the other, continued almost uninterrupted for twenty years. The Normans typically supported the pope. The main burden of the struggle against the emperor fell upon the Lombard League, whose rallying cry was “freedom,” inspired by a powerful sense of popular sentiment. The emperor besieged various cities and, in 1162, even captured Milan, ordering it to be razed to the ground and its inhabitants to disperse. However, within five years, the League had rebuilt Milan, and its former residents returned. That same year, the emperor, having prudently secured the support of an antipope, marched on Rome at the head of a vast army. The pope fled, and his cause appeared doomed, but a plague decimated Frederick’s army, forcing him to return to Germany as a solitary fugitive. Although the Lombard League now had allies not only from Sicily but also from the Greek emperor, Barbarossa made another attempt, culminating in his defeat at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. After this, he was compelled to make peace, granting the cities all the real guarantees of freedom. As for the conflict between the Empire and the papacy, the terms of the peace treaty yielded no decisive victory for either side.

The end of Barbarossa was dignified. In 1189, he set out on the Third Crusade, dying the following year. The rise of the free cities emerged as the most significant outcome of this prolonged struggle. The power of the emperor was tied to the decaying feudal system; the papacy, although still strengthening, primarily rested on the society's need for a pope as an antagonist to the emperor and thus waned when the emperor no longer posed a threat; the power of the cities, however, was a new factor, a result of economic progress, and a source of new political forms. Though this had not yet become evident in the twelfth century, the Italian cities soon fostered a secular culture that reached its zenith in literature, art, and science. All of this was made possible by the successful resistance of the Italian cities against Barbarossa.

All the major cities of Northern Italy thrived on trade; during the twelfth century, as order was restored in the land, merchants achieved unprecedented prosperity. The maritime cities—Venice, Genoa, and Pisa—never had to fight for their freedom with arms, making them less hostile to the emperor than the cities situated at the foot of the Alps, which were vital to him as gateways to Italy. For this reason, Milan stands out as the most emblematic and significant of the Italian cities of that era.

Up until the time of Henry III, the Milanese were generally content to be loyal to their archbishop. However, the Patarine movement we discussed in a previous chapter changed the dynamics: the archbishop sided with the nobility, and a powerful popular movement turned against both the bishop and the aristocracy. The outcome of this movement included early democratic elements and a constitution whereby the city’s rulers were elected by the citizens. In various northern cities, particularly Bologna, an educated class of secular jurists emerged, well-versed in Roman law; in general, wealthy laypeople, from the twelfth century onward, surpassed the feudal nobility north of the Alps in terms of education. Although the wealthy trading cities fought against the emperor in alliance with the pope, they did not share the ecclesiastical perspective. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, many of these cities adopted Puritanical heresies similar to those embraced by the merchants of England and Holland after the Reformation. Later, they leaned toward freethinking, outwardly professing loyalty to the church while, in reality, losing all genuine piety. Dante represents the last of the old type, while Boccaccio emerges as the first of the new.