- Italy in the early Middle Ages
- Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries
- Early modern Italy (16th to 18th century)
- Revolution, restoration, and unification
- Italy from 1870 to 1945
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During the 12th century a new political order developed in Italy. It was not a tidy process, however. In the south the ascendancy established by the Normans of Capua and by the Hautevilles gained strength with the conquest of Sicily from the Muslims in the late 11th century. Following the death of Robert Guiscard, his brother, Roger I, count of Sicily, went to the mainland to consolidate his position. His son, Roger II, succeeded in establishing a Norman kingdom. Recognition for it, however, was slow in coming. Roger first obtained it from the antipope Anacletus II (1130–38) and then, under conditions that revealed the weakness of the papacy before Norman power, from Pope Innocent II (1130–43) in 1139. The papacy continued to seek support from the French monarchy in order to offset growing Norman influence. On the other hand, victory in the Investiture Controversy, even though compromised, created a situation that enabled the 12th-century papacy to assume leadership of the reform movement throughout Europe. The Lateran Councils of 1123, 1139, and 1179 marked important stages in the development of the reform papacy. From Urban II on, the central administration of the church expanded. By the mid-12th century—about the time that the monk Gratian was compiling his Decretum, the most important collection of ecclesiastical law up to that time—Rome’s position as a court of appeals was growing faster than its judicial machinery could possibly accommodate. The process of definition and extension of papal control over ecclesiastical matters inevitably led to conflict with secular rulers. The determination of the papacy to protect its independence and, after the death of Matilda of Canossa in 1115, to hold onto the vast inheritance she had bequeathed to the Roman church in central Italy, as well as the ties that united the papacy to the reform bishops and to many of the laity who had supported the reform in their cities, signaled changes that had taken place since the Concordat of Worms in 1122. Finally, the keystone of the new order lay in the strength, as yet untested, of the communes. Vestiges of imperial support certainly remained both in the cities and in the countryside, but the old cause had given way before the real interests that were taking shape during this period.
The emperors of the Hohenstaufen dynasty that succeeded the Salian dynasty attempted to revive the imperial position in Italy. The first efforts of both pope and emperor in the period following the Concordat of Worms were, however, based upon the assumption that something of the old relationship remained. In part, this attitude may have been encouraged by the slight attention that Lothar II (or III; 1125–37) and Conrad III (1138–52) paid to Italian affairs. Lothar’s efforts against the Normans were ineffectual, and he focused primarily on civil war in Germany. His rival and successor, Conrad III, the first Hohenstaufen king, devoted considerable energy to the Second Crusade, which had been promoted by the Cistercian monk and monastic reformer Bernard of Clairvaux. The dominant role of Bernard of Clairvaux certainly influenced the selection of his former disciple, Eugenius III (1145–53), as pope. Forced to seek refuge in France by the political situation in Rome, where the radical reformer Arnold of Brescia stirred both feelings of independence and a demand for more-extreme reforms within the church, Eugenius cooperated with Bernard in the preaching of the Second Crusade. Although the Crusade was conceived originally as an enterprise to be led by the Capetian monarch Louis VII (1137–80), Conrad III was included when it became clear that there would be large-scale German participation. The Crusade fell well short of expectations, and Conrad returned to Germany in 1149 to resume his imperial program. Eugenius, who faced Arnold and the rebellious Romans and who was heavily dependent on Roger II of Sicily during Conrad’s absence on Crusade, hoped that Conrad’s return would provide the means to reestablish papal control in Rome, but turmoil in Germany prevented the realization of his desire. Conrad died without being able to journey to Italy to receive imperial coronation. Eugenius died the following year.
Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa)
The reign of Conrad’s successor and nephew, the duke of Swabia, Frederick I (1152–90), brought a major reassertion of imperial rule in Italy. Frederick saw himself not as the heir to a compromise but as a restorer of the Romano-Carolingian heritage of the German monarchy.
Papal-imperial relations
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, nationalistic and liberal historians popularized a view of Frederick I, whom the Italians called Barbarossa (“Redbeard”), that was surrounded by legend and embroidered by myth. Since World War II, however, scholars have moved away from nationalistic interpretations to reevaluate the imperial-papal relationship within its actual historical context. For example, the Treaty of Constance of March 23, 1153, by which both pope and emperor dedicated themselves almost to a return to the former status quo in both northern and southern Italy, demonstrated their effort to retain essential elements of the traditional order. But events soon showed how illusory this effort was. There was in fact little trust between the papal and imperial sides. Frederick made his descent into Italy in 1154 in order to secure his coronation as emperor. His troops were few, chiefly a band of knights under Henry III (the Lion), duke of Saxony. He put Milan under the ban of the empire for refusing to answer charges laid against it by Lodi, Pavia, and Cremona. But he could do little else. He moved quickly to Rome, where a new pope, Adrian IV (1154–59), the only Englishman ever to hold the papal see, had succeeded Pope Anastasius IV (1153–54). Adrian had little choice but to continue the arrangements made at Constance, although he and his chief adviser, Cardinal Roland Bandinelli (who later succeeded Adrian as Pope Alexander III), opposed Frederick’s reassertion of imperial claims to participate in papal elections. Still, they needed his support to quell the continuing unrest created by Arnold of Brescia. The emperor captured Arnold and turned him over to the prefect of the city, who hanged him, burned his body, and scattered his ashes in the Tiber River. Frederick, however, did not move against the Normans, although King Roger II of Sicily had died, and Adrian concluded a treaty with King William I (1154–66) of Sicily in 1156. Frederick’s first Italian trip thus served chiefly to demonstrate the impossibility of the kind of restoration that Frederick had envisaged in the Treaty of Constance, but that did not mean that he was prepared to surrender the rights of the empire. Quite the contrary, it helped to move the issues into a new arena.
Perhaps no more dramatic expression of the nature of this change could be imagined than the event that took place at Besançon, where the cardinals Bernard of San Clemente and Roland met with Frederick in October 1157 and delivered a letter from Pope Adrian. The pope reminded Frederick of his imperial coronation and informed him that he wished to confer great beneficia on him. The term, which could mean either favors or, in a more specific sense, offices, was translated into German by Frederick’s imperial chancellor Rainald of Dassel as “fiefs,” which implied that the emperor held the empire from the pope as a vassal. This caused an uproar among those present, particularly since Cardinal Roland went on to ask: “From whom then does he receive the empire…?” Although Pope Adrian denied the interpretation made by Rainald, the damage was done. More importantly, however, this incident shows that contemporaries were quite aware that they were treading on new ground. Frederick firmly rejected any implications of papal overlordship and asserted that he held the empire “from God alone by the election of the princes.” That his policies were grounded in political realities is confirmed by his actions in 1158, when again he set forth to Italy. This time he sought neither a rapprochement with the papacy nor a return to the old order. He came as a ruler intent on restoring order in his domains. Having humiliated Milan, which had attempted to oppose him, he met with the cities on the plain at Roncaglia to define the royal regalia (rights) on the basis of customary law. Four Bolognese lawyers joined 28 urban representatives in this task. The text of the three laws issued at Roncaglia, however, shows the increasing influence of Roman law at Frederick’s court.
