Eugenius III heard the message loud and clear. He promised to crown Frederick as Holy Roman Emperor, the title Conrad had never achieved, in exchange for Frederick’s help with a couple of nagging earthly problems; the Norman kingdom of Sicily was encroaching on the papal lands from the south, and the secular officials of Rome (the “Roman commune,” the senators who ran the city’s affairs) were agitating for more independence from papal power within the city itself.5
By the time Frederick arrived at Rome, with a fairly good-sized German army behind him, Eugenius III had died. His successor Adrian IV* (the only Englishman to ever hold the position) fulfilled the papal side of the bargain, and Frederick Barbarossa was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in June of 1155.
But whipping Italy into shape turned out to be a long-term project. The people of Rome were in no mood to acknowledge the German king. In fact, says Otto of Freising, they were “infuriated . . . that the emperor had received the imperial crown without their assent.” Right after the coronation, they rioted in the city streets; Barbarossa’s men killed over a thousand Romans as they fought their way out of the city and back to their camp.6
The mood north of the Papal States was no more welcoming.
Otto of Freising notes, with surprise, that the north of Italy had developed a very peculiar kind of society. Instead of loyalty to a king, Italians felt loyalty to their cities. “Practically that entire land is divided among the cities,” he writes, “. . . and scarcely any noble or great man can be found in all the surrounding territory who does not acknowledge the authority of his city.” So instead of reducing a single rebellious country to submission, Frederick Barbarossa found himself forced to address the loyalty of each city, one by one. The Genoese responded by building a whole series of new walls and openly defying the emperor. The consul of Milan persuaded a handful of other cities to join him in an anti-imperial coalition. Pope Adrian IV, reading the generally anti-Barbarossa mood of the peninsula, reversed himself and made a treaty with the Norman enemy to the south. He died shortly afterwards, before Barbarossa could come back to Rome and punish him, and two popes were elected in his place; a legitimate pope, Alexander III, appointed by the cardinals in proper ecclesiastical fashion; and an “antipope,” Victor IV, appointed by Frederick Barbarossa and installed in Rome by Frederick’s soldiers. Alexander III fled into Western Francia and excommunicated the antipope Victor IV, who paid no attention.7
Meanwhile, Henry the Lion was ruling the north and east of Germany in practical independence: a kingdom within the empire. In 1156, he began to push farther east against the Slavic territories. The following year, he founded the city of Munich on the Isar river, so that he could dominate the salt trade that crossed the river there; in 1159, he built a port at Lübeck to draw merchant ships in.
But he remained Frederick’s ally, accompanying his cousin into Italy to help him fight against the rebellious Italian territories. In 1162, with the help of both Henry the Lion and the armies of Pisa (Pisa had decided that there was more to be gained in fighting for the emperor, than against), Frederick Barbarossa finally conquered the stubborn city of Milan. It had been hostile to him since his coronation; it had caused him untold trouble, money, and men; it had been under siege for nearly eight months; and when the starving people finally surrendered, Barbarossa forced hundreds of the city’s elite to approach him barefoot, smeared with ashes, and kiss his feet. He then allowed his men to sack the city, burn its houses, and pillage its churches; when they were done, Milan no longer existed. All of its people were taken away and resettled in other villages.8
12.1 The Empire of Frederick Barbarossa
To remind his rebellious subjects that God had given him his imperial crown, Barbarossa took Milan’s most sacred relics—the bones of the Magi, the three kings who (tradition said) had brought gifts to the baby Jesus after his birth—back to the German city of Cologne. He installed them in the cathedral there, as patrons of the city; lending their recognition of a king greater than themselves to none other than Frederick Barbarossa. Three years later, he directed his puppet antipope in Rome—now Paschal III, appointed by Frederick in 1164 when Victor IV died—to canonize Charlemagne. Now he could claim that his royal office was holy in more than one way: given to him by God, first established by a saint.9
None of this helped him hold on to the Italian kingdom. The northern cities had been too independent for too long, and the old symbols of imperial authority counted for nothing with the tradesmen and guildsmen, merchants and artists, of Verona and Parma, Bologna and Venice. In 1167, the cities of the north banded together against Frederick’s claims, forming the Lombard League.
Frederick’s answering invasion was halted when his soldiers were attacked by a sudden and devastating epidemic of malaria. “A wind came from the southern zone with thunder and lightning,” wrote the Italian chronicler Godfrey of Viterbo, poetically. “Every man was drenched as the heat of the sun decreased, and became ill with a terrifying fever. . . . The soldiers ached with pain in their heads . . . and internal organs and legs.”10
The weakened imperial army crawled away, and the Lombard League consolidated its power. Together, the cities of the League began to rebuild Milan. They also joined together to build a brand new city, blocking the pass that the German armies used to descend into Italy. This new city they named Alessandria, in honor of the exiled pope.11
The malaria was bad luck, but when Frederick finally returned to Italy with fresh forces, he found that the Lombard League had passed beyond his control. In 1176, the combined armies of the League defeated the imperial forces decisively at Legnano; and Frederick, a realist, decided to abandon the struggle.
In 1177, at Venice, he made peace both with the cities of the League and with the legitimate Alexander III. The cities of the League were given the undisputed right to govern themselves. The antipope in Rome, Paschal III, had died in 1168; Frederick now abandoned his successor, the antipope Callixtus III, and recognized Alexander III as the sole authority over the Papal States.
It was not all bad news for Frederick, though. Returning to Germany, he confiscated the lands of Henry the Lion, who had refused to accompany him into Italy for the final confrontation, and drove his cousin into exile. Henry’s lands, which had grown to cover much of the north and the east, were partitioned up among less powerful noblemen who owed Frederick favors. Frederick had lost northern Italy; but now Germany was more firmly his than ever.
* * *
* The Wends were made up of a federation of five tribes: the Wagrians, Abotrites, Polabians, Rugians, and Liutizians. See John France, The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000–1714 (Routledge, 2005), pp. 111ff.
* Eugenius died in 1153 and was succeeded by Anastasius IV, who held the pontificate for less than a year before dying; Adrian IV was elected on December 3, 1154.
Chapter Thirteen
The Almohads in Spain
Between 1147 and 1177,
the Almohads destroy the Almoravids
but fail to capture the Spanish peninsula
BY 1147, Alfonso VII of León-Castile had pushed the southern front of Christian conquest more than halfway through the old Almoravid lands. In that same year, Alfonso I of Portugal captured Lisbon from its Muslim inhabitants, shoring up his claim of a royal title. And in the same year, the Almoravids fell. The Almohads stormed Marrakesh, under al-Mu’min’s direction, and brought the weakened Almoravid rule to an end.1
The remnants of the Almoravid empire lingered on in Spain, cut loose from its roots. The city of Granada, now independent of Marrakesh, remained in Muslim hands; but without direction from Africa, it began to chart its own political course, making overtures of alliance to Alfonso VII himself. The cities of Valencia and Murcia formed a mini-kingdom ruled by Ibn Mardanish; he also decided to make peace with the Christian king of León-Castile, agreeing to become a vassal of Alfonso VII in exchange for peace.2
But this independence was short-lived. “When all the provi
nces of Morocco were submissive to al-Mu’min,” the historian al-Marrakushi tells us, “he turned his armies to the eastern areas of North Africa, and then towards Spain.” In 1155, Granada was forced to surrender to Almohad armies and acknowledge al-Mu’min’s lordship. Two years later, the Almohads had advanced north of Granada, taking Ubeda, Baeza, and Almería from Alfonso’s very hands.3
On the way home from the defeat at Almería, Alfonso VII fell ill. He died in August of 1157, leaving Castile and León in the hands of his two sons Sancho and Fernando.
The division of the kingdom set the two brothers and their heirs against each other, severing the last unity among the four Christian kingdoms. Sancho died after a single year on the throne of Castile, and his three-year-old son Alfonso VIII inherited it, plunging Castile into a struggle between noble families for control of the regency; the king of Navarre, son of Garcia the Restorer, took advantage of Castile’s weakness to claim a few border towns for himself.4
13.1 The Kingdoms of Spain
But the Muslims in the south were on no better terms than the Christians of the north. Spain remained a secondary priority for the Almohad caliph, who was still shoring up his hold on North Africa. Granada had surrendered, but Ibn Mardanish of Valencia and Murcia refused to submit to Almohad rule, holding on to his alliance with the Christians of Castile instead; and Granada was constantly on the edge of rebellion against Almohad domination.5
Many of the peoples living in the contested and chaotic areas fled. Among them was Rabbi Maimon ben Joseph, who in 1160 took his wife and grown children and left the peninsula. Like many other Jews, the ben Joseph family had been living under steadily worsening conditions. An Almohad decree in 1146 had commanded all Jews (and any Christians who might be living in the Muslim areas) to convert to Islam, but even Jews who converted were required to wear distinctive black tunics and black caps to set them apart. As Almohad power in Spain grew, the decree was more and more often enforced. “[I am] like one who is drowning,” Maimon ben Joseph wrote, just before leaving his home. “We are almost totally immersed. . . . Overwhelmed with humiliation, blamed and despised, the seas of captivity surround us and we are submerged in its depths.”6
Conditions in the Christian kingdoms were only slightly better; and ben Joseph’s family, like many others, crossed over to the North African coast. Eventually they reached Egypt and settled there, under the more benevolent government of Saladin. There, ben Joseph’s older son Maimonides began to practice as a physician. He also started work on a massive, fourteen-volume summary of Jewish law, which he hoped would give the scattered and perplexed Jews a guide for living in troubled times.
Meanwhile, the Almohad grip on North Africa had tightened.
13.2 The Almohad Empire
The Almohad caliph ‘Abd al-Mu’min had brought all of North Africa under his control: “Through him,” wrote the Almohad historian al-Marrakushi, “God stamped out disbelief in Ifriqiya.” He was planning a massive transfer of forces over to the Spanish peninsula, in preparation for a full-scale assault on the Christian resistance.7
But in 1163, he died before launching his invasion. He had fathered fifteen sons, so for several years his son and successor Yusuf I had to spend most of his strength fighting off brotherly challenges to his caliphate. Struggles on the Spanish peninsula continued, small army against small army, border spats and guerrilla warfare. The unsettled times allowed mercenaries and adventurers to prosper.
One of the most famous of these was Gerald the Fearless, a Portuguese soldier of fortune who assembled an army of freebooters and campaigned recklessly into the area known as the Extremadura: outside Portuguese borders, well into Almohad territory. Sometime around 1165, he attacked the city of Evora. Later chroniclers insist that, when his soldiers balked, Gerald went up the walls himself by driving spears between the stones as a makeshift ladder and came back down with a couple of heads. Evora’s coat of arms commemorated the event, as did the epic poem Os Lusiadas, written in the sixteenth century by Luis Vaz de Camões:
Watch this one, shinning down his lance
Back to the ambush, with the heads
Of the two watchmen, and so captures
Evora with subterfuge and daring.8
The capture of Evora was the first in a series of victories for Gerald the Fearless and his band; he went on to seize at least four more towns.
The successes alarmed the Almohads, but were even more troubling to the Christian kings; Gerald seemed to be on the path to a private kingdom of his own. When Gerald laid siege to the Almohad city of Badajoz in 1169, Afonso Henriques of Portugal and Ferdinand II of León banded together to drive him off.
Gerald now found himself without a home. He made overtures of peace to the king of Portugal; Afonso Henriques, who broke his leg in the fight for Badajoz and was never again able to ride without pain, was not forgiving. So in 1172 Gerald offered to enter the service of the Almohad caliph Yusuf I instead.
The caliph accepted his allegiance and stationed him in the Moroccan desert. This was not a posting that showed great faith in Gerald’s loyalties, and, sure enough, within months Gerald was carrying on a second set of secret negotiations with Afonso Henriques, proposing to hand over his new territory so that the Portuguese would have a base of operations from which to attack the Almohad heartland. Yusuf I, getting wind of the messages, sent soldiers to arrest Gerald; whether or not by design, they killed him in the process.9
The siege of Badajoz had temporarily put the Almohad ruler of Badajoz and the two Christian kings on the same side. This blurring of allegiances troubled Yusuf I, and in the summer of 1171 he transported twenty thousand soldiers across the Strait of Gibraltar, aiming to firm up his hold on the Muslim territories. Within the year, he had whipped most of the Muslim cities into line.10
In 1172, he made his first foray against the Christian position. He laid siege to the city of Huete—and failed.
There were multiple reasons for the failure. At least one eyewitness suggests that Yusuf I, perhaps underestimating his enemy, wasn’t particularly engaged in the siege; instead of appearing on the battlefield, he remained in his tent, carrying on philosophical discussions with his advisors. The twenty thousand Almohad troops were an uneasy mixture of local Spaniards, Arabs, and North Africans; they all had their own native commanders and did not act easily in unison. They were forced to forage farther and farther afield for food. A message came from the pope to Huete, promising the city’s defenders remission from sin for their efforts and stiffening their resolve. And just as the inhabitants began to suffer from thirst, a massive rainstorm refilled the city’s reservoirs.11
When the news went around the Almohad camp that Alfonso VIII of Castile (now eighteen and ruling in his own name) was approaching to lift the siege, the Almohads gave up their position and retreated. It was an embarrassing defeat for Yusuf I, although not fatal; he would soon regather himself and relaunch the war.
But Huete was a turning point for the Christian kingdoms, which now began to readjust their attitudes towards each other. By 1177, all five of the Christian kings had sworn out treaties or created marriage alliances. The political unity of Alfonso the Battler had become a unity of purpose; and the latticework of allegiances woven by the Christian enemy would prove almost impossible for the Almohads to penetrate.
Chapter Fourteen
“Many Nations”
In the twelfth century,
Muslim kingdoms occupy the center and east of the African continent,
and lie side by side with much older traditions
until the two come into conflict
THE ALMOHAD EMPIRE that had spread across the north of Africa was not the only Muslim kingdom on the African continent. In the center of Africa, just west of Lake Chad, a Muslim king named Dunama ruled over the state of Kanem.
Kanem was, in the words of the tenth-century Arab geographer al-Muhallabi, a kingdom of “many nations”: a mix of peoples.* The nomadic Zaghawa, who had migrated south from
an increasingly hostile Sahara Desert perhaps four hundred years before, had settled near Lake Chad and adopted some of the customs of the villagers there; in Kanem, farmers and seminomadic herdsmen seem to have existed side by side. Their wealth, al-Muhallabi notes, “consists of livestock such as sheep, cattle, camels, and horses. The greater part of the crops of their county is sorghum and cowpeas and then wheat. . . . Their means of subsistence is crops and the ownership of livestock.”1
In the tenth century, Kanem still held to its native customs: “Their religion is the worship of their kings,” al-Muhallabi writes, “for they believe that they bring life and death, sickness and health.” But by Dunama’s day, Islam had come to the shores of Lake Chad. Dunama’s father Humai had been tutored by a Muslim scholar, from whom he learned the basics of the faith; the Girgam, the royal chronicle of Kanem’s rulers, says that Dunama himself made two successful hajjes, sacred pilgrimages to Mecca.
Kanem’s chronicle is unusual. Oral tradition is the only guide we have to the early history of the majority of African states, and many have no written history until the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century. But the Girgam, like most king lists, is not a neutral document. It preserves what appears to be a much older oral king list, stretching back at least eleven generations before the conversion of Humai. But among those kings is the biblical patriarch Abraham, apparently a Muslim gloss on the native past; and the list also displays a clearly Arab desire to identify the earliest Kanem kings as Arab, rather than as African. The eighth king of Kanem, the list assures us, was “as white silk,” and the first king identified as “a black man, a warrior hotter than fire” is the thirteenth-century ruler Dunama II.2
The History of the Renaissance World: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Conquest of Constantinople Page 10