An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 18

[Sidenote: Peace of Constance (1183) establishes independence of Lombard towns.]

A great congress was thereupon a.s.sembled at Venice, and here, under the auspices of Pope Alexander III, a truce was concluded, which was made a perpetual peace at Constance in 1183. The towns received back practically all their regalia and, upon formally acknowledging the emperor's overlordship, were left by him to go their own way. Frederick was forced, moreover, humbly to recognize a pope that he had solemnly sworn should never be obeyed by him. The pope and the towns had made common cause and enjoyed a common victory.

[Sidenote: Origin of the power of the Guelfs.]

From this time on we find the name _Guelf_ a.s.sumed by the party in Italy which was opposed to the emperors.[122] This is but another form of the name of the Welf family, who made most of the trouble for the Hohenstaufens in Germany. A certain Welf had been made duke of Bavaria by Henry IV (in 1070). His son added to the family estates by marrying a rich north-German heiress. His grandson, Henry the Proud, looked still higher and became the son-in-law of the duke of Saxony and the heir to his great duchy. This, added to his other vast possessions, made him the most powerful and dangerous of the va.s.sals of the Hohenstaufen emperors.

[Sidenote: Division of Saxony and the other great German duchies.]

On returning from his disastrous campaign against the Lombard towns, Frederick Barbarossa found himself at war with the Guelf leader, Henry the Lion (son of Henry the Proud), who had refused to come to the emperor's aid before the battle of Legnano. Henry was banished, and Frederick divided up the Saxon duchy. His policy was to split up the old duchies, for he clearly saw the danger of permitting his va.s.sals to control districts as large as he himself held.

[Sidenote: The Hohenstaufens extend their power into southern Italy.]

70. Before his departure upon the crusading expedition during which he lost his life, Frederick saw his son, Henry VI, crowned king of Italy.

Moreover, in order to extend the power of the Hohenstaufens over southern Italy, he arranged a marriage between the young Henry and Constance, the heiress to the Norman kingdom of Naples and Sicily.[123]

Thus the hopeless attempt to keep both Germany and Italy under the same head was continued. It brought about new conflicts with the popes, who were the feudal suzerains of Naples and Sicily, and ended in the ruin of the house of Hohenstaufen.

[Sidenote: Henry VI, 1190-1197.]

[Sidenote: His troubles in Italy and Germany.]

Henry VI's short reign was beset with difficulties which he st.u.r.dily met and overcame. Henry the Lion, the Guelf leader, having broken the oath he had sworn to Frederick to keep away from Germany, returned and organized a rebellion. So soon as this was quelled and the Guelf party was under control for a time, Henry VI had to hasten south to rescue his Sicilian kingdom. There a certain Norman count, Tancred, was leading a national revolt against the German claimant. The pope, who regarded Sicily as his fief, had freed the emperor's Norman subjects from their oath of fidelity to him. Moreover, Richard the Lion-Hearted of England had landed on his way to the Holy Land and allied himself with Tancred.

Henry VI's expedition to Italy proved a complete disaster. His empress was captured by Tancred's people, his army largely perished by sickness, and Henry the Lion's son, whom he held as a hostage, escaped. To add to his troubles, no sooner had he reached Germany once more than he was confronted by a new and more formidable revolt (1192). Luckily for him, Richard, stealing home through Germany from his crusade, fell into his hands. He held the English king, as an ally of the Guelfs, until he obtained an enormous ransom, which supplied him with the means of fighting his enemies in both Germany and Italy. The death of Tancred enabled him to regain his realms in southern Italy. But he endeavored in vain to induce the German princes to recognize the permanent union of the southern Italian kingdom with Germany, or to make the imperial crown hereditary in his house.

[Sidenote: Pope Innocent III.]

At the age of thirty-two, and in the midst of plans for a world empire, Henry succ.u.mbed to Italian fever, leaving the fate of the Hohenstaufen family in the hands of his infant son, who was to become the famous Frederick II. Just as Henry VI died, the greatest, perhaps, of all the popes was about to ascend the throne of St. Peter, and for nearly a score of years to dominate the political affairs of western Europe. For a time the political power of the popes almost overshadows that of a Charlemagne or a Napoleon. In a later chapter a description will be given of the great inst.i.tution over which Innocent III presided like a monarch upon his throne. But first we must follow the history of the struggle between the papacy and the house of Hohenstaufen during the remarkable career of Frederick II.

[Sidenote: Philip of Hohenstaufen and Otto of Brunswick rival claimants for the German throne.]

71. No sooner was Henry VI out of the way than Germany became, in the words of Henry's brother Philip, "like a sea lashed by every wind." So wild was the confusion, so torn and so shaken was poor Germany in all its parts, that far-sighted men doubted if they would ever see it return to peace and order. Philip first proposed to play the role of regent to his little nephew, but before long he a.s.sumed the imperial prerogatives, after being duly elected king of the Romans. The Archbishop of Cologne, however, summoned an a.s.sembly and brought about the election of a rival king, Otto of Brunswick, the youthful son of Henry the Lion.

[Sidenote: Innocent III decides in favor of Otto.]

So the old struggle between Guelf and Hohenstaufen was renewed. Both of the kings bid for the support of Innocent III, who openly proclaimed that the decision of the matter lay with him. Otto was willing to make the most reckless concessions to him; and as the pope naturally feared a revival of the power of the Hohenstaufen house should Philip be recognized, he decided in favor of the Guelf claimant in 1201. The grateful Otto wrote to him, "My kingship would have dissolved in dust and ashes had not your hand, or rather the authority of the Apostolic Chair, weighed the scale in my favor." Innocent appears here, as upon other occasions, as the arbiter of Europe.

In the dreary civil wars which followed in Germany, Otto gradually lost all his friends. His rival's promising career was, however, speedily cut short, for he was murdered by a private enemy in 1208. Thereupon the pope threatened to excommunicate any German bishop or prince who failed to support Otto. The following year Otto went to Rome to be crowned, but he promptly made an enemy of the pope by playing the emperor in Italy; he even invaded the Sicilian kingdom of the pope's ward, Frederick, the son of Henry VI.

[Sidenote: Innocent III the arbiter of western Europe.]

Innocent then repudiated Otto, in whom he claimed to have "been deceived as G.o.d himself was once deceived in Saul." He determined that the young Frederick should be made emperor, but he took great precautions to prevent him from becoming a dangerous enemy of the pope, as his father and grandfather had been. When Frederick was elected king in 1212 he made all the promises that Innocent asked.

[Sidenote: John of England becomes a va.s.sal of the pope.]

While the pope had been guiding the affairs of the empire he had by no means neglected to exhibit his power in other quarters, above all in England. The monks of Canterbury had (1205) ventured to choose an archbishop--who was at the same time their abbot--without consulting their king, John. Their appointee hastened off to Rome to gain the pope's confirmation, while the irritated John forced the monks to hold another election and make his treasurer archbishop. Innocent thereupon rejected both of those who had been elected, sent for a new deputation of monks from Canterbury, and bade them choose Stephen Langton, a man of great ability. John then angrily drove the monks of Canterbury out of the kingdom. Innocent replied by placing England under the _interdict_, that is to say, he ordered the clergy to close all the churches and suspend all public services,--a very terrible thing to the people of the time. John was excommunicated, and the pope threatened that unless the king submitted to his wishes he would depose him and give his crown to Philip Augustus of France. As Philip made haste to collect an army for the conquest of England, John humbly submitted to the pope in 1213. He went so far as to hand England over to Innocent III and receive it back as a fief, thus becoming the va.s.sal of the pope. He agreed also to send a yearly tribute to Rome.[124]

[Sidenote: The fourth Lateran Council, 1215.]

Innocent, in spite of several setbacks, now appeared to have attained all his ambitious ends. The emperor, Frederick II, was his protege and, as king of Sicily, his acknowledged va.s.sal, as was also the king of England. He not only a.s.serted but also maintained his right to interfere in all the important political affairs of the various European countries. In 1215 a stately international congress--the fourth Lateran Council--met in his palace. It was attended by hundreds of bishops, abbots, and representatives of kings, princes, and towns. Its decrees were directed against the abuses in the Church and the progress of heresy, both of which were seriously threatening the power of the clergy. It confirmed the election of Frederick II and excommunicated once more the now completely discredited Otto.[125]

[Sidenote: Death of Innocent III, 1216.]

[Sidenote: Emperor Frederick II, 1212-1250.]

72. Innocent III died during the following year and left a heritage of trouble to his successors in the person of the former papal ward, Frederick II, who was little inclined to obey the pope. He had been brought up in Sicily and was much influenced by the Arabic culture which prevailed there. He appears to have rejected many of the received opinions of the time. His enemies a.s.serted that he was not even a Christian, and that he declared that Moses, Christ, and Mohammed were all alike impostors. He was nearsighted, bald, and wholly insignificant in person; but he exhibited the most extraordinary energy and ability in the organization of his kingdom of Sicily, in which he was far more interested than in Germany. He drew up an elaborate code of laws for his southern realms and may be said to have founded the first modern well-regulated state, in which the king was indisputably supreme.

[Sidenote: His bitter struggle with the papacy.]

We cannot stop to relate the romantic and absorbing story of his long struggle with the popes. They speedily discovered that he was bent upon establishing a powerful state to the south of them, and upon extending his control over the Lombard cities in such a manner that the papal possessions would be held as in a vise. This, they felt, should never be permitted. Almost every measure that Frederick adopted aroused their suspicion and opposition, and they made every effort to destroy him and his house.

[Sidenote: Frederick recognized as king of Jerusalem.]

His chance of success in the conflict with the head of the Church was gravely affected by the promise which he had made before Innocent III's death to undertake a crusade. He was so busily engaged with his endless enterprises that he kept deferring the expedition, in spite of the papal admonitions, until at last the pope lost patience and excommunicated him. While excommunicate, he at last started for the East. He met with signal success and actually brought Jerusalem, the Holy City, once more into Christian hands and was himself recognized as king of Jerusalem.

[Sidenote: Extinction of the Hohenstaufens' power.]

Frederick's conduct continued, however, to give offense to the popes.

The emperor was denounced in solemn councils, and at last the popes began to raise up rival kings in Germany to replace Frederick, whom they deposed. After Frederick died (1250) his sons maintained themselves for a few years in the Sicilian kingdom; but they finally gave way before a French army, led by the brother of St. Louis, Charles of Anjou, upon whom the pope bestowed the southern realms of the Hohenstaufens.[126]

[Sidenote: Frederick's death marks the close of the mediaeval empire.]

With Frederick's death the mediaeval empire may be said to have come to an end. It is true that after a period of "fist law," as the Germans call it, a new king, Rudolf of Hapsburg, was elected in Germany in 1273.

The German kings continued to call themselves emperors. Few of them, however, took the trouble to go to Rome to be crowned by the pope. No serious effort was ever made to reconquer the Italian territory for which Otto the Great, Frederick Barbarossa, and his son and grandson had made such serious sacrifices. Germany was hopelessly divided and its king was no real king. He had no capital, no well-organized government.

[Sidenote: Division of Germany and Italy into small independent states.]

By the middle of the thirteenth century it became apparent that neither Germany nor Italy was to be converted into a strong single kingdom like England and France. The map of Germany shows a confused group of duchies, counties, archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbacies, and free towns, each one of which a.s.serted its practical independence of the weak king and emperor.

In northern Italy each town, including a certain district about its walls, had become an independent state, dealing with its neighbors as with independent powers. The Italian towns were destined to become the birthplace of our modern culture during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Venice and Florence, in spite of their small size, came to be reckoned among the most important states of Europe. In the central part of the peninsula the pope maintained more or less control over his possessions, but he often failed to subdue the towns within his realms.

To the south Naples remained for some time under the French dynasty, which the pope had called in, but the island of Sicily drifted into Spanish hands.

CHAPTER XV

THE CRUSADES

73. Of all the events of the Middle Ages, the most romantic and fascinating are the Crusades, the adventurous expeditions to Syria, undertaken by kings and doughty knights with the hope of permanently reclaiming the Holy Land from the infidel Turks. All through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries each generation beheld at least one great army of crusaders gathering from all parts of the West and starting toward the Orient. Each year witnessed the departure of small bands of pilgrims or of solitary soldiers of the cross. For two hundred years there was a continuous stream of Europeans of every rank and station making their way into western Asia. If they escaped the countless hazards of the journey, they either settled in this distant land and devoted themselves to war or commerce, or returned home, bringing with them tales of great cities and new peoples, of skill and luxury unknown in the West.

[Sidenote: Natural temptation to overrate the importance of the Crusades.]

Our sources of information in regard to the Crusades are so abundant and so rich in picturesque incidents that writers have often yielded to the temptation to give more s.p.a.ce to these expeditions than their consequences really justify. They were, after all, only one of the great foreign enterprises which have been undertaken from time to time by the European peoples. While their influence upon the West was doubtless very important,--like that of the later conquest of India by the English and the colonization of America,--the details of the campaigns in the East scarcely belong to the history of western Europe.

[Sidenote: The Holy Land conquered first by the Arabs and then by the Turks.]

[Sidenote: Eastern emperor appeals to the pope for aid against the infidel Turks.]