However undignified in its execution, the coup could now be seen to have been thoroughly and efficiently planned in advance—and on a scale which left no doubt that the empire must have been actively implicated. Octavian himself had long been notorious as an imperial sympathizer, and his election was immediately recognized by Frederick’s two ambassadors in Rome, who at the same time declared a vigorous war on Roland. Once again they opened their coffers, and German gold flowed freely into the purses and pockets of all Romans—nobles, senators, bourgeoisie, or rabble—who openly proclaimed their allegiance to Victor IV. Meanwhile, Roland and his faithful cardinals remained blockaded in St. Peter’s Tower.
But almost at once Octavian—or Victor, as we must now call him—saw his support begin to dwindle. The story of his behavior at the election was by now common knowledge in the city and, we may be sure, had lost nothing in the telling; everywhere, the Romans were turning toward Roland as their lawfully elected pope. A mob had formed around St. Peter’s Tower and was now angrily clamoring for his release. In the street, Victor was hooted at and reviled; lines of doggerel were chanted mockingly at him as he passed. On the night of September 16 he could bear it no longer and fled from Rome, and on the following day the rightful pontiff was led back into the capital amid general rejoicing.
But Roland knew that he could not stay. The imperial ambassadors were still in Rome and still had limitless money to spend. Victor’s family, too, the Crescentii, remained among the richest and most powerful in the city. Pausing only to assemble an appropriate retinue, on September 20 the pope traveled south to Ninfa, which was then under the sway of his friends the Frangipani; and there, in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, he at last received formal consecration as Alexander III. One of his first acts, predictably, was to excommunicate the antipope—who soon afterward (and equally predictably) excommunicated him in return. For the second time in thirty years, the Church of Rome was in schism.
Had Frederick bowed to the inevitable and accepted Alexander as the rightful pope that he indubitably was, there is no reason why the two could not have reached some accommodation. Instead, at the Council of Pavia in February 1160, the emperor formally recognized the ridiculous Victor, thereby forcing Alexander—whose claim was soon accepted by all the other rulers of Europe—into even closer alliance with William of Sicily and saddling himself with a new series of vain and useless obligations which were to cripple him politically for the best part of twenty years. The pope excommunicated Frederick in March—after Pavia he had little choice—and absolved all imperial subjects from their allegiance, but he was still unable to return to Rome. For nearly two years he divided his time between Terracina and Anagni, two papal cities conveniently close to the Sicilian kingdom, to which he looked both for his physical protection and for the financial subsidies he so desperately needed. Then, in the last days of 1161 he boarded a Sicilian ship for France.
For the next three and a half years he was to live in exile, mostly at Sens, working to form a great European League comprising England, France, Sicily, Hungary, Venice, the Lombard towns, and Byzantium against Frederick Barbarossa. He failed, as he was bound to do. King Henry II of England in particular he found impossible to trust. In the early days of the schism Henry had been a firm friend; as early as 1160 Bishop Arnulf of Lisieux had reported that while the king “received all Alexander’s communications with respect, he would not so much as touch Octavian’s letters with his hands but would take hold of them with a piece of stick and throw them behind his back as far as he could.” But in 1163 his difficulties with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had begun, and in the following year his promulgation of the Constitutions of Clarendon—deliberately designed to strengthen his hold over the English Church at the expense of the pope—had caused a distinct chill in Anglo-papal relations.
But Alexander’s disappointment at his diplomatic failure must have been forgotten when, early in 1165, he received an invitation from the Roman Senate to return to the city. The Antipope Victor, who had also been forced to spend his last years in exile, had died the year before in pain and poverty at Lucca, where he had been staying alive on the proceeds of not very successful brigandage and where the local hierarchy would not even allow him burial within the walls. Frederick, stubborn as ever, had immediately given his blessing to the “election,” by his two tame schismatic cardinals, of a successor under the name of Paschal III, but the action had earned him and his new antipope nothing but scorn, and it may well have been the ensuing wave of resentment and disgust at the absurdity of the schism and the pigheadedness of the emperor that had at last brought the Romans to their senses. Besides, the pilgrim trade had dried up. Without a pope, medieval Rome lost its raison d’être.
For all that, the homecoming was not an easy one. Frederick did everything he could to prevent it, even hiring pirates to waylay the papal convoy on the high seas. But Alexander took a roundabout route and landed, in September 1165, at Messina. Two months later he reached Rome, where, escorted by senators, nobles, clergy, and people, all bearing olive branches in their hands, he rode in state to the Lateran.
EARLY IN 1167, Frederick Barbarossa led his army over the Alps and across the plain of Lombardy; he then split it into two parts. The smaller, under the Archbishop of Cologne, Rainald of Dassel—who was also imperial chancellor and the emperor’s right hand—and another warlike ecclesiastic, Archbishop Christian of Mainz, was to march on Rome, enforcing the imperial authority as it went, and open a safe road for the Antipope Paschal, still sitting nervously in Tuscany. Frederick himself, with the bulk of his army, pressed on across the peninsula toward Ancona, the nucleus of Byzantine influence in Italy, to which he laid siege. The inhabitants put up a spirited resistance. Their defenses were strong and in good order, and they were determined not to be deprived of their association with the Empire of the East, which brought them considerable profit. Luck, too, was on their side. First, the emperor was diverted by the appearance down the coast of a Sicilian force; soon after his return he received news which caused him to raise the siege altogether and leave at once for Rome. The Anconitans were saved.
The Romans, on the other hand, were as good as lost. On Whit Monday, May 29, just outside Tusculum, their large but undisciplined army had attacked the Germans and Tusculans under Christian of Mainz and, though outnumbering them many times over, had been utterly shattered. Imperial messengers had sped to Frederick with the news. Rome, they reported, was still holding out, but failing massive reinforcements it could not last long; still less could it hope to resist a new German attack at full strength. The emperor was jubilant. With Rome ripe for the plucking, Ancona could wait. His arrival in Rome sealed the fate of the Leonine City. A single savage onslaught smashed the gates; the Germans poured in, only to find an unsuspected inner fortress: St. Peter’s itself, ringed with strongpoints and hastily dug trenches. For eight more days it held out; it was only when the besiegers set fire to the forecourt, destroying the great portico so lovingly restored by Innocent II and finally hacking down the huge portals of the basilica itself, that the defending garrison surrendered. Never had there been such a desecration of the holiest shrine in Europe. Even in the ninth century, the Saracen pirates had contented themselves with tearing the silver panels from the doors; they had never penetrated the building. This time, according to a contemporary—Otto of St. Blaise—the Germans left the marble pavements of the nave strewn with dead and dying, the high altar itself stained with blood. And this time the outrage was the work not of infidel barbarians but of the emperor of Western Christendom.
St. Peter’s fell on July 29, 1167. On the following day, at that same high altar, the Antipope Paschal celebrated Mass and then invested Frederick—whom Pope Hadrian had crowned twelve years before—with the golden circlet of the Roman Patricius—a deliberate gesture of defiance to the Senate and People of Rome. Two days later still, he officiated at the imperial coronation of the Empress Beatrice, her husband standing at her side. Pope Alex
ander had no alternative; disguised as a simple pilgrim, he slipped out of the city and made his way to the coast, where he was discovered—fortunately by friends—three days later, sitting on the beach and waiting for a ship. He was rescued and taken to safety in Benevento.
Frederick’s triumph in Rome marked the summit of his career. He had brought the Romans to their knees, imposing on them terms which, though moderate enough, were calculated to ensure their docility in the future. He had placed his own pope on the Throne of St. Peter. North Italy he had already subdued, and now, with his strength still undiminished, he was ready to mop up the Kingdom of Sicily. Poor Frederick—how could he possibly have foreseen the catastrophe that was so soon to overtake him, one that in less than a single week was to destroy his proud army in a way that no earthly foe could ever have matched? On that memorable August 1, the skies had been clear and the sun had blazed down on his triumph. Then, on the second, a huge black cloud suddenly obscured the valley beneath Monte Mario. Heavy rain began to fall, followed by a still and oppressive heat. On the third came pestilence. It struck the imperial camp with an unparalleled swiftness and force, and where it struck, more often than not, it killed. Within a matter of days it was no longer possible to bury all the dead, and the rising piles of corpses, swollen and putrefying in the merciless heat of a Roman August, made their own grim contribution to the sickness and the pervading horror. Frederick, seeing the flower of his army dead or dying around him, had no choice but to strike his camp, and by the second week of August he and his silent, spectral procession were dragging themselves homeward through Tuscany.
Even now the nightmare was not over. Reports of the plague had already spread through Lombardy, and the Germans arrived to find town after town closed against them. At last, and with considerable difficulty, they reached the imperial headquarters at Pavia; and there—with the Alpine passes already blocked—Frederick was forced to halt, watching in impotent rage when, on December 1, no fewer than fifteen of the leading cities formed themselves into the greater Lombard League, the foundations of which had been laid at Anagni eight years before. It was his crowning humiliation; such was his Italian subjects’ contempt for him that they had not even waited until he was back over the Alps before making their ultimate gesture of defiance. Indeed, when the spring at last came and the snow began to melt, he saw that even this last lap of his homeward journey was to be a problem; the passes were all controlled by his enemies and closed to himself and his shattered army. It was secretly, shamefully, and in the guise of a servant that the Emperor of the West finally regained his native land.
While Frederick Barbarossa was tasting his triumph and disaster, what had happened to his old enemy the pope? Alexander had first taken refuge with his Frangipani friends. Serious as the situation was, he seems to have thought that he might still be able somehow to maintain himself in the capital, and when two Sicilian galleys sailed up the Tiber he had actually refused their captains’ offer to carry him away to safety. It was a courageous decision but, as he soon saw, an unwise one. The Romans, fickle as ever, turned against him. Disguised as a pilgrim, he finally embarked in a small boat and slipped down the river to freedom. Landing at Gaeta, he then made his way to Benevento, where he was joined by his loyal cardinals. He had escaped not a moment too soon. Had he fallen into the emperor’s hands, that surely would have been the end of his active pontificate; even if he had somehow avoided capture, he would probably have perished in the epidemic—which, it need hardly be said, did not confine itself to the imperial army but raged through Rome until the Tiber was thick with corpses. The Almighty, perhaps, had been on his side after all.
Such, certainly, was the view of the papal supporters. God-fearing men everywhere, and in Germany perhaps most of all, saw in that dreadful visitation on Barbarossa the hand of the exterminating angel—not only a just retribution for his crimes but also a proof of the rightness of Alexander’s cause. The pope’s popularity soared, and with it his prestige. The Lombard cities made him patron of their new League, and even invited him—though he did not accept—to take up residence among them. Meanwhile, they founded a new city between Pavia and Asti and named it Alessandria in his honor.
In Rome, the Antipope Paschal had meanwhile lost what derisory support he had ever enjoyed. His health too was failing fast, and everyone knew that he had not long to live. In such circumstances it would have been a simple matter for Alexander to return to the Lateran; but Alexander refused. He had come to hate Rome, and he despised the Romans for their faithlessness and venality. Three times in eight years they had welcomed him to their city; three times they had turned against him and driven him into exile. He had no wish to go through it all again. Benevento, Terracina, Anagni—there were plenty of other places from which the business of the Papacy could be transacted with efficiency and dispatch, free from the intrigues and the ceaseless violence of the Eternal City. He preferred to remain where he was.
It would be eleven years before he saw Rome again.
ON SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1176, at Legnano just outside Milan, Frederick Barbarossa suffered at the hands of the Lombard League the most crushing defeat of his career. He lost much of his army and narrowly escaped with his own life; but the disaster brought him to his senses. After four long Italian campaigns he saw that the Lombard cities were as determined as ever to resist him and, since the formation of their League, well able to do so. Pope Alexander was now recognized almost everywhere—even in much of the empire itself—as the rightful pontiff. For Frederick to persist any longer in the policy on which he had already wasted the best years of his life would earn him the derision of Europe.
His ambassadors met the pope at Anagni to negotiate the terms of the reconciliation. In essence, they were simple enough: on the imperial side, recognition of Alexander, restitution of Church possessions, and the conclusion of peace with Byzantium, Sicily, and the Lombard League; on the papal, confirmation of Frederick’s wife as empress, of his son Henry as King of the Romans, and of several distinguished prelates in sees which they originally owed to schismatic antipopes. The next question was where the great meeting was to take place. After prolonged argument it was agreed that pope and emperor should meet in Venice, on condition that Frederick not be admitted into the city until Alexander had given his consent.
On May 10, 1177, the pope arrived with his Curia. He was received by the doge and the patriarchs of Grado and Aquileia and, after High Mass in St. Mark’s, was carried in the state barge to the Patriarchal Palace at San Silvestro, which was put at his disposal for as long as he cared to remain. Before his meeting with the emperor there was much work to be done; during the discussions at Anagni he had had no brief to speak for either Sicily or the League, both of which would have to reach agreement with the imperial plenipotentiaries if the promised kiss of peace was to have the significance he intended for it. So now, in the Patriarchal Chapel, a second round of negotiations began. Meanwhile the emperor, to whom by the terms of the reconciliation Venetian territory was still forbidden, held himself in readiness—first at Ravenna, and later, with Alexander’s permission, at Chioggia.
The League representatives in particular proved hard bargainers, and the talks dragged on for over two months; but on July 23 agreement was complete. At the pope’s request a Venetian flotilla left for Chioggia and brought Frederick to the Lido, whither a delegation of four cardinals sailed out to greet him. In their presence he solemnly abjured his antipope and made formal acknowledgment of Alexander; they in turn lifted his seventeen-year excommunication. Now at last he could be admitted into Venice. Early next morning the doge himself arrived at the Lido, where Frederick had spent the night, with an impressive retinue of nobles and clergy. He personally escorted the emperor to a barge specially decorated for the occasion, and together they were rowed in state to the Piazzetta.
In Venice itself the last preparations had been completed. Flags were flying, windows dressed. For much of that summer the city was crowded as never before, with
its normal floating foreign population of travelers and merchants now swollen to many times its normal size by the greatest princes and prelates of Europe, each bent on outshining his rivals in the splendor of his retinue. One, the Archbishop of Cologne, brought with him a suite of 400 secretaries, chaplains, and attendants; the Patriarch of Aquileia boasted 300, as did the archbishops of Mainz and Magdeburg. Count Roger of Andria, the second envoy of the King of Sicily, had 330; Duke Leopold V of Austria, with a train of only 160, must have cut a sorry figure indeed.
Of the several eyewitness accounts that have survived, perhaps the most vivid is the De Pace Veneta Relatio, whose author seems to have been a German churchman:
At daybreak, the attendants of the Lord Pope hastened to the church of St. Mark the Evangelist and closed the central doors … and thither they brought much timber and deal planks and ladders, and so raised up a lofty and splendid throne.… Thither the pope arrived before the first hour of the day [6 A.M.] and having heard Mass soon afterward ascended to the higher part of his throne to await the arrival of the emperor. There he sat, with his patriarchs, cardinals, archbishops, and bishops innumerable; on his right was the Patriarch of Venice, and on his left that of Aquileia.
And now there came a quarrel between the Archbishop of Milan and the Archbishop of Ravenna as to which should be seen to take precedence, and each strove to sit himself in the third place from that of the pope, on his right side. But the pope determined to put an end to their contention and, leaving his own exalted seat, descended the steps and placed himself below them. Thus was there no third place to sit in, and neither could sit on his right. Then about the third hour there arrived the doge’s barge, in which was the emperor, with the doge and cardinals who had been sent to him on the previous day, and he was led by seven archbishops and canons of the Church in solemn procession to the papal throne. And when he reached it, he threw off the red cloak he was wearing and prostrated himself before the pope and kissed first his feet and then his knees. But the pope rose and, taking the head of the emperor in both his hands, he embraced him and kissed him and made him sit at his right hand and at last spoke the words “Son of the Church, be welcome.” Then he took him by the hand and led him into the Basilica. And the bells rang, and the Te Deum laudamus was sung. When the ceremony was done, they both left the church together. The pope mounted his horse, and the emperor held his stirrup and then retired to the Doge’s Palace …
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