LITMIR.BIZ

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the peroration of his argument (op. cit. vol. iii. p. 95). In other words, he aims at a narrow Popolo, a pura cittadinanza, in the sense of Cacciaguida Par. xvi.

[4] In some places we find as many as twelve Consuls. It appears that both the constituent families of the Popolo and the numbers of the Consuls were determined by the Sections of the city, so many being told off for each quarter.

In the North of Italy not a few of the greater vassals, among whom may be mentioned the houses of Canossa, Montferrat, Savoy, and Este, creations of the Salic Emperors, looked with favor upon the development of the towns, while some nobles went so far as to constitute themselves feudatories of Bishops.[1] The angry warfare carried on against Canossa by the Lombard barons has probably to be interpreted by the jealousy this popular policy excited. At the same time, while Lombardy and Tuscany were establishing their municipal liberties, a sympathetic movement began in Southern Italy, which resulted in the conquest of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily by the Normans. Omitting all the details of this episode, than which nothing more dramatic is presented by the history of modern nations, it must be enough to point out here that the Normans finally severed Italy from the Greek Empire, gave a monarchical stamp to the south of the peninsula, and brought the Regno they consolidated into the sphere of national politics under the protection of the Pope. Up to the date of their conquest Southern Italy had a separate and confused history. It now entered the Italian community, and by the peculiar circumstances of its cession to the Holy See was destined in the future to become the chief instrument whereby the Popes disturbed the equilibrium of the peninsula in furtherance of their ambitious schemes.

[1] The Pelavicini of S. Donnino, for example, gave themselves to Parma.

The greatness of the Roman cities under the popular rule of their Bishops is illustrated by Milan, second only to Rome in the last days of the Empire. Milan had been reduced to the condition of abject misery by the Kings, who spared no pains to exalt Pavia at the expense of her elder sister. After the dissolution of the kingdom, she started into a new life, and in 1037 her archbishop, Heribert, was singled out by Conrad II. as the protagonist of the episcopal revolution against feudalism.[1] Heribert was in truth the hero of the burghs in their first strife for independence. It was he who devised the Carroccio, an immense car drawn by oxen, bearing the banner of the Commune, with an altar and priests ministrant, around which the pikemen of the city mustered when they went to war. This invention of Heribert's was soon adopted by the cities throughout Italy. It gave cohesion and confidence to the citizens, reminded them that the Church was on their side in the struggle for freedom, and served as symbol of their military strength in union. The first authentic records of a Parliament, embracing the nobles of the Popolo, the clergy, and the multitude, are transmitted to us by the Milanese Chronicles, in which Heribert figures as the president of a republic. From this date Milan takes the lead in the contests for municipal independence. Her institutions like that of the Carroccio, together with her tameless spirit, are communicated to the neighboring cities of Lombardy, cross the Apennines, and animate the ancient burghs of Tuscany.

[1] He was summoned before the Diet of Pavia for having dispossessed a noble of his feud.

      Having founded their liberties upon the episcopal presidency, the cities now proceeded to claim the right of choosing their own Bishops. They refused the prelates sent them by the Emperor, and demanded an election by the Chapters of each town. This privilege was virtually won when the war of Investitures broke out in 1073. After the death of Gregory VI. in 1046, the Emperors resolved to enforce their right of nominating the Popes. The two first prelates imposed on Rome, Clement II. and Damatus II., died under suspicion of poison. Thus the Roman people refused a foreign Pope, as the Lombards had rejected the bishops sent to rule them. The next Popes, Leo IX. and Victor II., were persuaded by Hildebrand, who now appears upon the stage, to undergo a second election at Rome by the clergy and the people. They escaped assassination. But the fifth German, Stephen X., again died suddenly; and now the formidable monk of Soana felt himself powerful enough to cause the election of his own candidate, Nicholas II. A Lateran council, inspired by Hildebrand, transferred the election of Popes to the Cardinals, approved by the clergy and people of Rome, and confirmed the privilege of the cities to choose their bishops, subject to Papal ratification. In 1073 Hildebrand assumed the tiara as Gregory VII., and declared a war that lasted more than forty years against the Empire. At its close in 1122 the Church and the Empire were counterposed as mutually exclusive autocracies, the one claiming illimitable spiritual sway, the other recognized as no less illimitably paramount in civil society. From the principles raised by Hildebrand and contested in the struggles of this duel, we may date those new conceptions of the two chief powers of Christendom which found final expression in the theocratic philosophy of the Summa and the imperial absolutism of the De Monarchiâ. Meanwhile the Empire and the Papacy, while trying their force against each other, had proved to Italy their essential weakness. What they gained as ideas, controlling the speculations of the next two centuries, they lost as potentates in the peninsula. It was impossible for either Pope or Emperor to carry on the war without bidding for the support of the cities; and therefore, at the end of the struggle, the free burghs found themselves strengthened at the expense of both powers. Still it must not be forgotten that the wars of Investitures, while they developed the independent spirit and the military energies of the Republics, penetrated Italy with the vice of party conflict. The ineradicable divisions of Guelf and Ghibelline were a heavy price to pay for a step forward on the path of emancipation; nor was the ecclesiastical revolution, which tended to Italianize the Papacy, while it magnified its cosmopolitan ascendency, other than a source of evil to the nation.

      The forces liberated in the cities by these wars brought the Consuls to the front. The Bishops had undermined the feudal fabric of the kingdom, depressed the Counts, and restored the Roman towns to prosperity. During the war both Popolo and Commune grew in vigor, and their Consuls began to use the authority that had been conquered by the prelates. At first the Consuls occupied a subordinate position as men of affairs and notaries, needed to transact the business of the mercantile inhabitants. They now took the lead as political agents of the first magnitude, representing the city in its public acts, and superseding the ecclesiastics. The Popolo was enlarged by the admission of new burgher families, and the ruling caste, though still oligarchical, became more fairly representative of the inhabitants. This progress was inevitable, when we remember that the cities had been organized for warfare, and that, except their Consuls, they had no officials who combined civil and military functions. Under the jurisdiction of the Consuls Roman law was everywhere substituted for Lombard statutes, and another strong blow was thus dealt against decaying feudalism. The school of Bologna eclipsed the university of Pavia. Justinian's Code was studied with passionate energy, and the Italic people enthusiastically reverted to the institutions of their past. In the fable of the Codex of the Pandects brought by Pisa from Amalfi we can trace the fervor of this movement, whereby the Romans of the cities struggled after resurrection.

One of the earliest manifestations of municipal vitality was the war of city against city, which began to blaze with fury in the first half of the twelfth century, and endured so long as free towns lasted to perpetuate the conflict. No sooner had the burghs established themselves beneath the presidency of their Consuls than they turned the arms they had acquired in the war of independence, against their neighbors. The phenomenon was not confined to any single district. It revealed a new necessity in the very constitution of the commonwealths. Penned up within the narrow limits of their petty dependencies, throbbing with fresh life, overflowing with a populace inured to warfare, demanding channels for their energies in commerce, competing with each other on the paths of industry, they clashed in deadliest duels for breathing space and means of wealth. The occasions that provoked one Commune to declare war upon its rival were trivial. The animosity was internecine and persistent. Life or death hung in the balance. It was a conflict for ascendency that brought the sternest passions into play, and decided the survival of the fittest among hundreds of

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