• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Burghs Against Nobles

The next great chapter in the history of Italian evolution is the war of the burghs against the nobles. The consular cities were everywhere surrounded by castles; and, though the feudal lords had been weakened by the events of the preceding centuries, they continued to be formidable enemies. It was, for instance, necessary to the wellbeing of the towns that they should possess territory around their walls, and this had to be wrested from the nobles. It must suffice to say that, partly by mortgaging their pro|ierty to rich burghers, partly by entering the service of the cities as condottieri, partly by espousing the cause of one town against another, and partly by forced submission after the siege of their strong places, the counts were gradually brought into connection of dependence on the communes. These, in their turn, forced the nobles to leave their castles, and to reside for at least a portion of each year within the walls.

By these measures the counts became citizens, the rural population ceased to rank as serfs, and the Italo-Roman population of the towns absorbed into itself the remnants of Franks, Germans, and other foreign stocks. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of this revolution, which ended by destroying the last vestige of feudality, and prepared that common Italian people which afterward distinguished itself by the creation of European culture.

But, like all the vicissitudes of the Italians, while it was a decided step forward in one direction, it introduced a new source of discord. The associated nobles proved ill neighbors to the peaceable citizens. They fortified their houses, retained their military habits, defied the consuls, and carried on feuds in the streets and squares. The war against the castles became a war against the palaces; and the system of government by consuls proved inefficient to control the clashing elements within the state.

This led to the establishment of podestas, who represented a compromise between two radically hostile parties in the city, and whose business it was to arbitrate and keep the peace between them. Invariably a foreigner, elected for a year with power of life and death and control of the aimed force, but subject to a strict account at the expiration of his office, the podesta might be compared to a dictator invested with limited authority. His title was derived from that of Frederick Barbarossa's judges; but he had no dependence on the empire. The citizens chose him, and voluntarily submitted to his rule. The podesta marks an essentially transitional state in civic government, and his intervention paved the way for despotism.

The thirty years which elapsed between Frederick Barbarossa's death in 1190 and the coronation of his grandson Frederick II in 1220 form one of the most momentous epochs in Italian history. Barbarossa, perceiving the advantage that would accrue to his house if he could join the crown of Sicily to that of Germany, and thus deprive the popes of their allies in Lower Italy, procured the marriage of his son Henry VI to Constance, daughter of King Roger, and heiress of the Hauteville dynasty. When William II, the last monarch of the Normans, died, Henry VI claimed that kingdom in his wife's right, and was recognized in 1194.

Three years afterward he died, leaving a son, Frederick, to the care of Constance, who in her turn died in 1198, bequeathing the young prince, already crowned king of Germany, to the guardianship of Innocent III. It was bold policy to confide Frederick to his greatest enemy and rival; but the pope honorably discharged his duty, until his ward outgrew the years of tutelage, and became a fair mark for ecclesiastical hostility. Frederick's long minority was occupied by Innocent's pontificate. Among the principal events of that reign must be reckoned the foundation of the two orders, Franciscan and Dominican, who were destined to form a militia for the Holy See in conflict with the empire and the heretics of Lombardy.

A second great event was the fourth crusade, undertaken in 1198, which established the naval and commercial supremacy of the Italians in the Mediterranean. The Venetians, who contracted for the transport of the crusaders, and whose blind doge Dandolo was first to land in Constantinople, received one-half and one-fourth of the divided Greek empire for their spoils. The Venetian ascendancy in the Levant dates from this epoch; for though the republic had no power to occupy all the domains ceded to it, Candia was taken, together with several small islands and stations on the mainland.

The formation of a Latin empire in the East increased the pope's prestige; while at home it was his policy to organize Countess Matilda's heritage by the formation of Guelf leagues, over which he presided. This is the meaning of the three leagues, in the March, in the duchy of Spoleto, and in Tuscany, which now combined the chief cities of the papal territory into allies of the Holy See. From the Tuscan league Pisa, consistently Ghibelline, stood aloof. Rome itself again at this epoch established a republic, with which Innocent would not or could not interfere. The thirteen districts in their council nominated four caporioni, who acted in concert with a senator, appointed, like the podesta of other cities, for supreme judicial functions.

Meanwhile the Guelf and Ghibelline factions were beginning to divide Italy into minute parcels. Not only did commune range itself against commune under the two rival flags, but party rose up against party within the city walls. The introduction of the factions into Florence in 1215, owing to a private quarrel between the Buondelmonti, Amidei, and Donati, is a celebrated instance of what was happening in every burgh.