To be sure, they had good reason to do so. The young Frederick Barbarossa, now about thirty-two years old, seemed to his German contemporaries the very nonpareil of Teutonic chivalry. Tall and broad-shouldered, attractive rather than handsome, he had eyes that twinkled so brightly under his thick mop of reddish-brown hair that, according to one chronicler who knew him well,1 he always seemed on the point of laughter. But beneath this easy-going exterior there lurked a will of steel, an utter dedication to a single objective. 'My wish,' he wrote succinctly to the Pope, 'is to restore to the Roman Empire its ancient greatness and splendour.' It was a conception that left no room for compromise, and, in particular, it ruled out the possibility of any real alliance with Constantinople. Since 1148 Manuel Comnenus had made no secret of the fact that he considered South Italy to be Byzantine territory. Conrad, who knew how much he needed Manuel's friendship, had been prepared to agree to a partition, and on his deathbed he had implored his nephew to pursue the same policy; but to the young Barbarossa such an idea was unthinkable. Barely a year after his accession he had signed a treaty with the Pope at Constance, by the terms of which it was agreed that Byzantium would be allowed no concessions on Italian territory; if its Emperor were to attempt to seize any by force, he would be expelled. The brief honeymoon between the two Empires was at an end.
To Manuel, Conrad's death therefore meant a good deal more than the loss of a friend and ally. Occurring as it did on the eve of the
1 Acerbus Morena, podesta of Lodi, who with his father Otto was one of the first lay historians of North Italy.
great campaign that was to restore to Constantinople its long-lost Italian provinces, it also spelt a serious political reverse—just how serious, Frederick's behaviour was soon to show. But though Manuel quickly saw that he could no longer expect any help from the Western Empire, he was unaware of the precise terms of the Treaty of Constance and still believed in the possibility of some sort of Italian partition. One thing only was clear—that whatever he was to regain he would have to fight for. If, as seemed likely, the Germans marched against William of Sicily, it was essential that a strong Byzantine force should be present, ready to protect the legitimate rights of the Eastern Empire. If they did not, then he proposed to take the initiative on his own. When, therefore, in the early summer of 1154, he received ambassadors from Sicily offering, in return for a peace treaty, the restitution of all Greek prisoners and all the spoils from George of Antioch's Theban expedition, he refused outright. Such an offer could only mean that the new King was afraid of an imperial invasion; if he was afraid, he was weak; if he was weak, he would be defeated.
The mutual suspicions that divided the two Empires, together with their common hatred for the Sicilian Kingdom, were fully shared by the Papacy. Eugenius's successor, Anastasius IV, was old and ineffectual, concerned chiefly with his own self-glorification; but he did not last long, and when, in the last days of 1154, his body was laid to rest in the gigantic porphyry sarcophagus that had previously held the remains of the Empress Helena—transferred, on his own orders, to a modest urn in the Ara Coeli a few months previously1— he was succeeded by a man of very different calibre: Adrian IV, the only Englishman ever to occupy the Throne of St Peter.
Nicholas Breakspear was born around 1115 at Abbot's Langley in Hertfordshire, at that time a dependency of the monastery of St Albans. While still a student he had moved to France, and later— after a short and not particularly successful period as prior of St Rufus, near Aries—to Rome. There, thanks to his eloquence, ability and outstanding good looks, he had soon caught the attention of Pope Eugenius. Fortunately for him, the Pope was a convinced
1 The sarcophagus is now in the Sala a Croce Greca of the Vatican Museum. Helena's remains, however, have disappeared without trace.
Anglophile; he once told John of Salisbury that he found the English admirably fitted to perform any task they turned their hand to, and thus to be preferred to all other races—except, he added, when frivolity got the better of them. Frivolity, however, does not seem to have been one of Nicholas's failings. Early in 1152 he was sent as Papal Legate to Norway, there to reorganise the Church throughout Scandinavia. Two years later he was back again in Rome, his mission accomplished with such distinction that, on Anastasius's death the following December, the forceful, energetic Englishman was unanimously elected to succeed him.
It was a wise choice, for energy and force were desperately needed. At the time of Adrian's accession Frederick Barbarossa had already crossed the Alps to his first Italian campaign. On his arrival in Rome he would be sure to demand his imperial coronation; but even if he were to receive it, there was little likelihood that the Pope would ever be able to trust him as an ally. Indeed, with his known absolutist views, Frederick was unlikely to prove anything but a constant anxiety to the Holy See. Another, separate invasion was threatened from the Byzantine East. In the South, William I's Sicily might be going through a critical stage, but was still outwardly as strong and prosperous as ever. Worst of all was the situation in Rome itself. Encouraged by the tractability of Eugenius and Anastasius, the Senate had grown still more arrogant; meanwhile its position had been further reinforced, and the Pope's own spiritual authority dangerously weakened, by the teachings of a monk from Lombardy whose influence, skilfully built up over the past decade, had by now made him the virtual master of Rome.
His name was Arnold of Brescia. In his youth he had studied in the Schools of Paris—probably under Abelard at Notre Dame—where he had been thoroughly imbued with the principles of the new scholasticism, essentially a movement away from the old mystical approach to spiritual matters, and towards a spirit of logical, rationalistic enquiry. To the mediaeval Papacy, radical ideas of this sort would have seemed quite subversive enough; but Arnold combined with them a still more unwelcome feature—a passionate hatred for the temporal power of the Church. For him the State was, and must always be, supreme; the civil law, based on the laws of Ancient Rome, must prevail over the canon; the Pope, for his part, should divest himself of all worldly pomp, renounce his powers and privileges, and revert to the poverty and simplicity of the early Fathers. Only thus could the Church re-establish contact with the humble masses among its flock. As John of Salisbury wrote:
Arnold himself was frequently to be heard on the Capitol and in various assemblies of the people. He had already publicly denounced the Cardinals, maintaining that their College, beset as it was with pride, avarice, hypocrisy and shame, was not the Church of God but a house of commerce and a den of thieves, men who took the place of the scribes and Pharisees among Christian peoples. Even the Pope himself was other than what he professed; rather than an apostolic shepherd of souls, he was a man of blood who maintained his authority by fire and the sword, a tormenter of churches and oppressor of the innocent, whose only actions were for the gratification of his lust and for the emptying of other men's coffers in order that his own might be filled. . . . There could be no toleration of one who sought only to impose a yoke of servitude on Rome, seat of Empire, fountain of liberty and mistress of the world.1
Naturally, the Papacy had fought back. Naturally, too, it had used the Abbot of Clairvaux—to whose unquestioning, unwavering faith Arnold's views were anathema—as its champion. In consequence, as early as 1140 Arnold had been condemned, together with his old master Abelard, at the Council of Sens and had been expelled from France. By 1146, however, he was back in Rome; and the Roman Senate, fired by his blazing piety and recognising in his ideas the spiritual counterpart of its own republican aspirations, had welcomed him with open arms.
Pope Eugenius, another ascetic, possibly out of some secret sympathy for Arnold, had allowed him to return to the capital; and Anastasius, vieillard pacifique et conciliant as Chalandon describes him, had turned a deaf ear to his thunderings. But Adrian was of a different stamp. When, on his accession, he found himself confined by Arnold's supporters to St Peter's and the Leonine City, he had at first merely ordered the agita
tor to leave Rome; but when, predictably, Arnold took no notice and instead allowed his followers to attack and
1 John of Salisbury, Hisloria Pontificalis.
grievously wound the venerable Cardinal Guido of S. Pudenziana as he was walking down the Via Sacra on his way to the Vatican, the Pope played his trump card. For the first time in the history of Christendom, Rome itself was laid under an interdict.
It was an act of breath-taking courage. A foreigner, who had been Pope for only a few weeks, knew the city and its increasingly xenophobic inhabitants hardly at all and was able to rely on little or no popular support, had dared by a single decree to close all the churches of Rome. Exceptions were made for the baptism of infants and the absolution of the dying; otherwise all ceremonies and sacraments were alike forbidden. No masses could be said, no marriages solemnised; dead bodies might not even be buried in consecrated ground. In the Middle Ages, when religion still constituted an integral part of every man's life, the effect of such a moral blockade was immeasurable. Besides, Easter was approaching. The prospect of the greatest feast of the Christian year passing uncelebrated was bleak enough; without the annual influx of pilgrims, one of the principal sources of the city's revenue, it was bleaker still. For a little while the Romans held out; but by the Wednesday of Holy Week they could bear it no longer and marched on the Capitol. The Senators saw that they were beaten. Arnold and his followers were expelled; the interdict was lifted; the church bells pealed out their message; and on Sunday, as he had always intended to do, Pope Adrian IV celebrated Easter at the Lateran.
Frederick Barbarossa, meanwhile, kept the feast at Pavia, where on the same day he was crowned with the traditional Iron Crown of Lombardy. Like more than one Emperor before him, he had been astonished at the intensity of republican feeling in the cities and towns of North Italy, by their determination to cast off the old feudal obligations in favour of civic independence and communal self-government; and he had considered it his duty—at the cost of some delay to his original plans—to give a further demonstration of imperial strength. Milan, the perennial focus of revolt, was too strong for him, but her ally Tortona had looked an easy victim. The little town had made a herioc stand against the combined forces of the Empire, Pavia and Montferrat; but when, after two months' siege, the wells ran dry and the inhabitants were parched into surrender, they had paid dearly for their heroism. Though their lives were spared, their city had been razed until not one stone was left on another.
After Easter, however, Frederick delayed no longer. His descent through Tuscany was so fast that to the Roman Curia it seemed positively threatening. The fate of Tortona was by now common knowledge throughout Italy; Henry IV's treatment of Gregory VII seventy years before had not been forgotten; and several of the older cardinals could still remember how, in 1111, Henry V had laid hands upon Pope Paschal II in St Peter's itself and held him two months a prisoner until he capitulated. In all the recent reports now circulating about the new King of the Romans, there was nothing to suggest that he would not be fully capable of similar conduct. No wonder the Curia began to feel alarm.
Hurriedly, Adrian sent two of his cardinals north to the imperial camp. They found it at S. Quirico near Siena, and were cordially received. Then, as an earnest of his goodwill, they asked Frederick for help in laying hands on Arnold of Brescia who, after wandering for some weeks round the Campagna, had at last taken refuge with some local barons. Frederick readily agreed; he detested Arnold's radical views almost as much as the Pope himself and welcomed this new opportunity to show his power. Sending a body of troops to the castle in question, he had one of the barons seized and held as a hostage until Arnold himself should be delivered. The fugitive was immediately given up to the papal authorities; and the cardinals, reassured, applied themselves to their next task— to make arrangements for the first, critical interview between Pope and King.
The meeting was fixed for 9 June at Campo Grasso, near Sutri. It began auspiciously enough with Adrian, followed by his bishops and cardinals and escorted by a great company of German barons sent forward by Frederick to greet him, riding in solemn procession to the imperial camp. But now trouble began. At this point, according to custom, the King should have advanced to lead in the Pope's horse by the bridle and to hold the stirrup while its rider dismounted; he did not do so. For a moment Adrian seemed to hesitate. Then, dismounting by himself, he walked slowly across to the throne which had been prepared for him and sat down. Now at last Frederick stepped forward, kissed the Pope's feet and rose to receive the traditional kiss of peace in return; but this time it was Adrian who held back. The King, he pointed out, had denied him a service which, in reverence for the apostles Peter and Paul, his predecessors had always rendered to the Supreme Pontiff. Until this omission was rectified, there could be no kiss of peace.
Frederick objected that it was no part of his duty to act as a papal groom; and all that day and the next the dispute continued. Adrian would not be shaken. He knew that what appeared on the surface to be a minor point of protocol concealed in reality something infinitely more important—a public act of defiance that struck at the very root of the relationship between Empire and Papacy. Against this knowledge explanations and arguments were of no avail. Suddenly and surprisingly, Frederick gave in. He ordered his camp to be moved a little further south, to the neighbourhood of the town of Monterosi; and there, on the morning of n June, the events of two days before were restaged. The King advanced to meet the Pope, led in his horse by the bridle for the distance, we are told, of a stone's throw; then, firmly holding the stirrup, he helped him to dismount. Once again Adrian settled himself on the throne that awaited him; the kiss of peace was duly bestowed; and conversations began.
Adrian and Frederick would never entirely trust one another; but the incident had somehow increased their mutual respect and the ensuing discussions seem to have been amicable enough. The terms agreed at Constance were confirmed. Neither party would enter into separate negotiations with William, Manuel or the Roman Senate. Frederick for his part would defend all legitimate papal interests, while Adrian in return would excommunicate all enemies of the Empire who, after three warnings, persisted in their opposition. Reassured of each other's intentions, the two rode on together towards Rome.
From the side of the Papacy there was now no longer any objection to the imperial coronation.1 This ceremony, on the other hand, had
1 One chronicler (Helmold, Chronica Slavorum) maintains that Frederick had sent ambassadors from Tuscany to Adrian with a formal request for the coronation; and that they had received the following reply: 'Let him first regain for St Peter the land of Apulia, which William the Sicilian holds by force; then let him come and be crowned by us.' It seems improbable. Adrian was not likely to dispute imperial claims to Apulia at such a time; and he certainly did not insist on this condition at the subsequent negotiations.
2 Ex inproviso non inprovise.
not been performed since the establishment of the Roman Commune; how would Rome itself now greet its Emperor-to-be ? It was an open question, and Frederick's recent move against Arnold of Brescia had made it more problematical still. But he and Adrian were not kept long in suspense. While they were still some distance from the city they were met by a deputation sent out by the Senate to greet them and to make clear the conditions on which they would be received.
Bishop Otto of Freising, probably an eyewitness, has left us what appears to be a verbatim record of what took place. The dialogue began with a long set speech by the leader of the Roman deputation. Though not by any means hostile, it was bombastic and patronising; it suggested that Rome alone had made Frederick's Empire what it was and that consequently the new Emperor would do well to consider his moral obligations to the city—obligations which apparently included making a sworn guarantee of its future liberty and an ex gratia payment of five thousand pounds of gold.
The spokesman was still in full spate when Frederick interrupted him. Speaking, as
Otto neatly puts it, 'without preparation but not unprepared'1, and with 'his usual modest charm of expression', he pointed out that all Rome's ancient glory and traditions had now passed, with the Empire itself, to Germany. He had come not to receive gifts from the Romans but to claim what was rightfully his. Naturally, he would defend Rome as necessary; but he saw no need for formal guarantees and had no intention of giving any. As for gifts of money, he would bestow them as and where he pleased.
Frederick's quiet assurance took the ambassadors off their guard. In reply to enquiries whether they had anything more to say, they could only stammer that they must return to the capital for instructions ; with that, they took their leave. As soon as they were gone, Pope and King held an urgent consultation. Adrian, with his experience of the Roman Senate, had no doubt that trouble was to be
expected. He advised the immediate despatch of a body of troops, to be accompanied by Cardinal Octavian of Monticelli, to occupy the Leonine City1 by night and hold it against all adversaries. Even with this precaution, he pointed out, the danger would not be entirely averted. If they wanted to avoid trouble, he and Frederick would have to move quickly.
The date was Friday, 17 June. Such was the urgency of the situation that the two agreed not even to wait for the following Sunday as they would normally have done. Instead, at dawn on Saturday, Frederick rode down from Monte Mario and entered the Leonine City, which his troops had already surrounded, by the Golden Gate near St Peter's. The Pope, who had arrived an hour or two previously, was awaiting him on the steps of the basilica. They entered it together, a throng of German knights following behind. Adrian himself celebrated Mass; and there, over the tomb of the Apostle, he hurriedly girded the sword of St Peter to Frederick's side and laid the imperial crown on his head.
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