The Age of Chivalry

by Hywel Williams

  ABOVE Simone Martini’s contemporary portrayal of Guidoriccio da Fogliano, in Siena’s Palazzo Publico, shows the Sienese conquest of the castles of Montemassi and Sassoforte in 1328.

  The constitutions of the independent Italian city-states at the height of their influence in the 13th century harked back to the peninsula’s earlier history of Roman republicanism, with the commune’s three components being represented by elected consuls who also presided over the law courts. Sovereignty was vested in a consilium generale or popular assembly composed of male citizens who, elected on a franchise restricted by mostly property qualifications, debated issues and selected officials. Service in the local militia was a near universal obligation, and the majority of the male population were therefore involved in public life to some degree. Many of these republics also administered a territory of dependent towns, but most remained small in scale. Florence, with its population of some 100,000 in 1300 was certainly large by contemporary standards; the figure of 15,000 inhabitants for Padua at that time was nearer the average.

  Although their constitutions looked republican, the reality was that power at the highest levels within the Italian city-states was almost invariably exercised by a small number of influential individuals. This grouping was itself subject to factional squabbles, but these went some way to being resolved by the appointment of a podesta or chief magistrate who came from outside the city and who therefore stood above the locality’s quarreling élite. This official was usually a nobleman and his elevation, as in the case of the Visconti in Milan, the Gonzaga at Mantua, and the Carrara of Padua, led to one-man rule. If this was the characteristic pattern from the late 13th century onward in the north of Italy, the towns of Tuscany, including Florence, managed to retain not just their communes and consuls but also some of the reality of republican liberty until well into the 14th century. Such republican survivals also preserved the conflicts that had become endemic to these city-state arrangements, and as the commune came under the control of the rich, so the lower orders among the popolo started to establish their own organizations. A popular rebellion of 1250 in Florence saw the popolo electing their own leader as well as 12 other representatives, and the republic’s nobility were expelled from power in the first of a series of revolutions and counterrevolutions that continued for well over a century.

  THE VENETIAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT

  Venice’s steady evolution as an independent state ruled by a close-knit group of patricians gave it remarkable stability. Executive power, the right to summon an assembly (the concio), and the appointment of tribunes and justices: all were vested in the doge or duke in the early eighth century shortly after the republic asserted its independence of the Byzantine empire. Other Italian city-states might experiment with republican politics, but Venice’s ruling class steadily restricted the rights of its subjects.

  The concio was only rarely summoned from the late 12th century onward. Instead it was replaced by a great council of some 450 members chosen by delegates elected by the city’s six wards. This was the body that appointed state officials, and each of the wards also produced a member for the six-man executive council. Eleven aristocrats who were themselves chosen by the nobility elected the doge for life, and the fact that no doge could elect his successor accentuated the Venetian government’s oligarchic nature. In 1296 membership of the great council was restricted to the descendants of a small number of aristocrats. The failure of Bajamonte Tiepolo’s 1310 conspiracy to depose the ruling doge led to the establishment of the notoriously secretive Consiglio dei Dieci or Council of Ten, the executive that really ran Venice from that time onward.

  Unlike other Italian city-states, Venice had not suffered from the intrusions of a rural aristocracy who brought to the towns and cities in which they settled the very substantial baggage of their own well-established patterns of feuding, rivalry and bloodshed. The business of Venice was business. Its aristocrats were not members of a feudal nobility but successful merchants who shared a common interest in commerce and in the maintenance of a stable political regime that allowed them to become even richer. That formidable solidarity created an enduring élite and, since Venice’s earliest origins were barely seventh century, the city had no ancient republican history that might be evoked in protest at the irreversible diminution of liberty.

  Rome, on the other hand, was the very fountainhead of the republican tradition, but it was the alliance of aristocratic influence with papal politics that predominated in the city’s domestic politics. The commune of Rome, under the leadership of the monk Arnold of Brescia, sought to revive the ancient republic in the late 1140s. Cola di Rienzo attempted a similar feat in 1347 by expelling the aristocracy from the city and proclaiming himself a tribune. But these were short-lived experiments that ended in failure. It was tiaras and not tribunes that mattered in medieval Rome.

  ABOVE A presentation is made to the doge of Venice in this 1534 painting by Paris Bordone (1495–1570).

  GUELPHS AND GHIBELLINES

  Aristocratic factionalism, popular rebellions and the relationship between Italian and German culture all combined to ensure the long-term use of the terms “Guelph” and “Ghibelline.” Welf, the family name of Bavaria’s dukes, and Waiblingen, the Staufer family’s castle in Swabia, may have been used as rallying cries during the Battle of Weinsberg (1140) fought during the German civil war that broke out when these two great dynasties competed for the imperial title.

  The Italian campaigns of Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152–90) a generation later saw the two terms crossing the Alps and assuming an Italianate form. Barbarossa was a Staufer and his followers, who embraced the cause of the empire, became known as the Ghibellini. Defenders of the Italian cities’ independence adopted the term Guelph as a label describing an anti-Staufer, and hence anti-imperial, position. The papacy’s association with the cities in opposing the Staufen meant that Guelph became a label denoting those who supported the papal cause in general. The words subsequently became part of the internal Italian political struggle and were used as party labels with different cities competing against each other in the late 12th and throughout the 13th century.

  Geography and strategy, rather than consistent ideology, determined whether a city should be “Guelph” or “Ghibelline.” Either label could be used so long as it helped to define and defend a city’s pursuit of its independence. A city in the north, where the empire was a real threat, tended to be Guelph. But a central Italian city threatened by an expansion of papal territorial power was more likely to call itself Ghibelline. Size as well as regional position determined affiliations. Florence was far enough from Rome to call itself Guelph, and the much smaller Siena—threatened by the expansion of its neighbor—was therefore Ghibelline.

  The removal of the Staufer dynasty from the imperial throne in the mid-13th century ended one particular external threat, but Italy’s Guelph-Ghibelline struggle continued. Different occupational groups, guilds and areas within the cities were now using the labels to describe and justify their factionalism, and these vicious conflicts supplemented the traditional intercity struggle. Florence was now riven between the two parties, and it was here that the Guelphs themselves split in reaction to the election in 1294 of Benedetto Caetani as Pope Boniface VIII. Black Guelphs still supported the papacy, but the White Guelphs, who included Dante Alighieri, opposed Boniface’s particularly aggressive exposition of the papacy’s temporal power. Dante was exiled when the Black Guelphs seized power in Florence in 1302, and his eventual disillusion with the entire political scene supplies the immediate background to his composition The Divine Comedy.

  A map illustration of the town of Weinsberg in 1578.

  THE NORMANS IN SICILY

  1016–1184

  At the beginning of the 11th century Norman mercenaries had begun to reach the southern Italian mainland—a region where the Greek empire was facing rebellions from local Lombard leaders. Conflicts between Lombard princes, as well as the ultimately successful s
truggle to eject the Greeks from the south, gave the Norman knights their opportunity. In recognition of their military service they were granted fiefdoms that became the basis of their own independent power and led to the establishment of a Norman kingdom that included the island of Sicily as well as the southern Italian peninsula.

  Before the Norman intervention, Puglia and Calabria, located respectively at the “heel” and “toe” of the Italian peninsula, constituted a Byzantine province. They were separated, however, by the southern half of the independent Lombard principality of Salerno. To the north of these territories lay two other Lombard principalities, Benevento and Capua, as well as the duchy of Amalfi, an area along the western coast that was effectively independent despite owing allegiance to Byzantium. The eastern port of Bari was the Greek province’s capital, and the rebellion that started here in 1016 was the first example of military action by a joint Lombard-Norman force. The Greeks retaliated by building the military fortress of Troia at the Apennine Pass in order to guard access to the Puglian plain. This fortification greatly alarmed the papacy which, as the representative of Latin Christianity, had its own cultural and religious reasons for wishing to expel the Greeks from Italy. The earliest Norman mercenaries to arrive in Italy may indeed have enjoyed some papal support as a result. Troia symbolized a resurgent Byzantium, and some Lombard princes had submitted to the Greeks following the counter-offensive. Pope Benedict therefore appealed to the German emperor to send an army to the south, and although the campaign of 1022 failed to take Troia, Henry II was able to reassert imperial authority over his Lombard vassals.

  Subsequent military disputes between the Lombards gave employment to opportunistic Norman knights whose sole consistent aim was to prevent the dominance of any single Lombard prince. The year 1030 saw the creation of the first Norman principality in southern Italy when Sergius IV, duke of Naples and a nominal vassal of the Greeks, granted the county of Aversa as a fiefdom to his ally Ranulf Drengot. This concession was a tremendous coup for the Normans, and the county became a convenient rendezvous for the arriving mercenaries. A further honor awaited Ranulf in 1037 when the emperor Conrad II recognized his title and, consequently, the countship of Aversa was held directly from the emperor. In the following year Ranulf invaded Capua, and as a result his territory became part of the Capuan principality.

  RIGHT A mosaic depicts the coronation of Roger II by Christ, in the church of St. Mary of the Admiral, commonly know as “La Martonora,” Palermo, Sicily. King of Sicily from 1130, he was the second son of Count Roger I of Sicily (1031–1101).

  THE RISE OF THE HAUTEVILLES

  By this stage, however, another Norman clan, the Hauteville family, were having an impact on the south of Italy. Guaimar IV, ruler of Salerno, had employed some of its members in the campaign of 1038–40 waged by the Greek army and his own Lombard force against Arab-ruled Sicily, and William de Hauteville gained his nickname of “Iron Arm” during that struggle. On the mainland, however, it was the fight against the Greeks that mattered, and a Norman force gained a major victory over the Byzantine army at the Battle of Monte Maggiore, fought near Cannae on March 16, 1041. Guaimar remained a key Norman ally but the mercenaries were also now coalescing around William Iron Arm, and in September 1042 he was elected their leader. The deal that was subsequently struck suited all parties. William de Hauteville and his circle proclaimed Guaimar as “duke of Apulia and Calabria,” while they in turn received lands in the region surrounding Melfi that were divided into 12 baronies and held as fiefs.

  The Hauteville brothers, William, Drogo and Humphrey, were therefore now territorial nobles rather than mere mercenaries. Two Norman dynasties had been established in the south, and the de Hautevilles, like the Drengots, became direct vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor. The brothers pursued the southern campaigns against Byzantium, and their victories in Calabria also empowered their half-brother, Robert “Guiscard” (“the resourceful”), who was destined to take his family’s fortunes to new heights. The papacy, alarmed by the rise of Norman power, sponsored a coalition force that included equally disenchanted Lombard leaders, and it was this army that confronted the united Normans at Civitate on June 18, 1053. Robert Guiscard’s strategic brilliance and personal bravery played a key role in a Norman victory, and papal realism dictated an eventual rapprochement. In 1057, on succeeding Humphrey as count of Apulia, Robert Guiscard abandoned his loyalty to the empire and became a vassal of the pope, who in return granted him the title of duke.

  BELOW This detail from the illuminated manuscript Nuova Cronica written by the Florentine author Giovanni Villani (c.1275–1348), depicts Pope Nicholas II investing Robert Guiscard as duke of Apulia and Calabria.

  Richard Drengot had succeeded to the countship of Aversa in 1049, and continued his relative’s policy of aggression against neighboring Lombard territories. He conquered both Gaeta and Capua and then pushed at the Salerno principality’s northern borders. As prince of Capua, Richard pursued alternately aggressive and peaceful policies in relation to the papacy whose lands he bordered to the north, but his ineffective successors became dependent on Hauteville patronage by the late 11th century. Benevento to the east of Capua succumbed to the Hautevilles by stages following the victory at Civitate. It then became a base for the clan’s penetration of contiguous papal territories that continued until 1080, when the Hautevilles undertook to respect papal territory.

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  THE NORMANS IN SICILY

  1016 Outbreak of a Lombard-Norman rebellion in Bari, capital of the Greek empire’s province in southern Italy.

  1030 The county of Aversa becomes the first Norman-held principality in southern Italy.

  1041 A Norman army defeats the Byzantine force at the Battle of Monte Maggiore.

  1061 Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger expel a Greek military expedition that had been besieging Melfi, Puglia.

  1071 Bari, the last Western European outpost of Greek power, falls to the Normans.

  1072 Palermo falls to Robert Guiscard, whose brother Roger is then granted the title “count of Sicily.”

  1077 Robert Guiscard de Hauteville, duke of Apulia, conquers the Lombard principality of Salerno.

  1112 Roger II starts to rule as count of Sicily. He invades Puglia (1126) following the death of its Norman duke, establishes his authority in southern Italy, and is crowned king (1130).

  1184 Constance, the posthumously born daughter of Roger II, marries Henry VI, son and heir to Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa.

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  STRUGGLING FOR CONTROL ON THE ITALIAN MAINLAND

  The Salerno principality had enjoyed a long period of splendor and riches under the Lombards. Its subjugation by Robert Guiscard in 1077, along with the conquest of neighboring Amalfi, gave the Normans their biggest victory so far. The city of Salerno was southern Italy’s greatest city and it became a focal point for the exercise of their authority. However, control of Amalfi proved elusive, with revolts and local dissidence only dying out after the duchy’s final subjugation by the Normans in 1131.

  In the late 1050s, shortly after Robert Guiscard’s accession, Puglia seemed securely Norman but the Greeks retained control of much of Calabria, a region where cultural Hellenism ran deep. By 1060 Robert, together with his youngest brother Roger, had taken most of the Calabrian Greek cities, and they agreed to share power in the region. But Byzantium refused to give up without a fight, and the end of the year saw the arrival in Puglia of a large Greek army that then besieged Melfi. In 1061 the two Norman leaders were able to expel this Byzantine force, but the Greek army based at Bari posed a major challenge despite repeated Norman attacks during the late 1060s. Bari was the last outpost of Greek power in Western Europe, and following its seizure in 1071 Norman ambitions seemed uncontainable.

  SICILY—JEWEL IN THE NORMAN CROWN

  The island of Sicily’s mixed population of Greek Christians, Arabs and Jews were ruled by Arab conquerors who, however, were quarreling with each other in the mid
-11th century. Once again, the Normans took advantage of dissension among a ruling élite. Roger and Robert crossed the straits of Messina in May 1061, with Robert Guiscard having been invested with the (very theoretical) title of “duke of Sicily” when he became a papal vassal. After conquering and fortifying Messina, their swift progress through eastern Sicily was eased by an alliance with one of the local emirs. But the Norman army was defeated at Enna, the formidable fortress at the island’s center, and evacuation followed. Subsequent campaigns witnessed a deepening of the Norman presence on the island, and in 1072 both the city of Palermo and its military citadel fell to the army commanded by Robert Guiscard. Roger became count of Sicily under his brother’s overall suzerainty and was to rule most of the island with the exception of Palermo and half of Messina, where Robert retained authority. Arab occupation nonetheless remained widespread, and Roger’s subsequent successes over the local emirs at Trapani in 1077 and at Taormina in 1079 had to be supplemented by a systematic campaign of conquest that started in 1085. Syracuse only capitulated in the spring of 1086 after a year-long siege, and Sicily could not be said to be securely Norman until the fall of Noto in the island’s southeast in 1091.

  BELOW The 12th-century Norman Castello di Venere in Erice, Sicily, is built on a sheer cliff face, an ideal situation for a defensive fortification.