After Charlemagne, however, the Frankish Empire went to pieces, and the Frankish emperors dwindled and became more foolish and feeble till they ended in the insane Charles the Fat, and then the imperial name more or less died out. France became a welter of princes and dukes. The remains of Charlemagne’s empire continued in the dukedoms of Germany, Franconia, and Lorraine.
The disappearance of the Carolings, as the House of Charlemagne was called, had a disastrous effect on Italy, where the Frankish emperors had ruled and kept some sort of connection with the Pope. Popes were set up and thrown down by the robber knights of the Campagna, who called themselves senators or consuls, till the power of the papacy even came into the hands of loose women, and popes were the creatures of rich, reckless mistresses.
Germany at this time consisted of six great duchies:
Saxony, Franconia, Thuringia, Suabia, Bavaria and Lorraine. These duchies were practically independent, but they recognised a king. The House of Charlemagne had come to an end. There was no heir to the old Frankish name. In 919, at an assembly of the Saxon and Francon- ian peoples, Henry, Duke of Saxony, was chosen King of the Germans. He is usually called Henry the Fowler. He was a strong, active man. He fought against the Norman Vikings, and against the Slavonic peoples who threatened Germany in the east, but chiefly against the wild Huns and Magyars who came up from the Middle Danube, invading Europe about this time. Henry the Fowler won the allegiance of the other great dukes of Germany, so that when he died they elected his son Otto, king. Otto fought against the Slavonic Prussians, pushed his power over the Elbe, and established the great bishopric of Magdeburg as a strong centre in the cast. He also established border-governments called Palatinates and Marks. In 955 he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Magyars, so that they retreated to Hungary, where they live to this day.
Otto was never safe from the great dukes of Germany, who were jealous of him. So he made friends with the bishops. The bishops of Germany were far from Rome. They were the only educated people in the land. They were rich and powerful as princes. So into their hands Otto put the administration of the land, and the great bishops of Cologne, Mainz, Worms, Magdeburg were now collecting taxes, holding law-courts, and organising armies in Germany, whilst the dukes fought and plundered and made havoc.
But Italy has always had a fatal fascination for the Germans, ever since the first barbarians came against Rome. Otto could not bear to think of the degradation and shame of the popes. He depended on the bishops of Germany. And how could any bishops be respected if their chief, the Holy Father, were a creature of shame?
Moreover the powerful Archbishop of Mainz already refused to serve Otto very willingly. So the king thought that if he marched into Italy and set the Pope straight there, he should be master of his clergy at home.
He came down over the Alps and easily mastered North Italy. He occupied Rome, and rescued the Pope John from his enemies. In 962, Otto was crowned Emperor of Rome, by the grace of God and the Pope. And so the Holy Roman Empire was really established. It became one of the greatest institutions of the Middle Ages. And so also began the most important relationship between Pope and Emperor. Henceforth the German kings were filled with the fatal passion to rule in Italy, to stretch a great empire from the Baltic over the Alps to the extremes of Sicily and Calabria. And this was never possible, for the peoples of Italy and Germany are so vitally different. If Rome could not rule Germany, how could Germany rule Rome? Yet the two extreme nations of Europe never ceased to be fascinated the one by the other, pitched against one another.
Another sign of the fascination which Italy exerted over the Germanic mind is seen in the conquest of Sicily and South Italy by the Normans. We know that the Normans from Norway and Denmark, fierce Vikings, raided Europe and England in the time of Charlemagne. We know that they settled in the Seine valley, and established the Dukedom of Normandy, soon becoming more French than the French. We know that from Normandy they conquered England in 1006. In 1040 a little band of Normans were fighting as free lances in the south of Italy. In Normandy, in the castle of Hauteville, was a Norman knight named Tancred, who had twelve sons. These sons must ride to seek their fortune. Some came south to Calabria. One of these sons was called Robert, Robert Guiscard, or Wiscard, Wiseacre. He was a tall, splendid Viking with long, flaxen beard flying, and blue eyes sparking fire. He joined his countrymen in the south, where the Greeks from Constantinople were fighting the Pope. Ultimately the Pope made Robert Guiscard Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and of such lands in Sicily and Italy as he could win from the perfidious Greeks. This was in 1060, six years before the Conquest of England. And this was the beginning of the famous Norman kingdom of Sicily and Naples, which lasted so long, and was such a power in the Mediterranean and such a thorn in the side of the popes. Normans emigrated in great numbers, in their ships, like Vikings of old, and settled in Sicily under Robert. So that once more the North settles and possesses the South.
On the one side the Pope had the Normans for neighbours. To the north of him lay Tuscany, and beyond that the great towns of Lombardy, just rising to new independence and new strength — Milan, Bologna, Florence, Verona, Pisa, Genoa.
In 1073 Hildebrand, a monk, was raised to the papal throne, becoming Gregory VII. He was a small man, but impressive. The people loved him, the monks and many of the bishops and nobles were on his side. And he was determined to be the chicf power in Christendom. ‘ The Roman Pontiff is unique in the world. He alone can depose or reconcile bishops. He can be judged by no one. The Roman Church never has been deceived and never can be deceived. The Roman Pontiff has the right to depose emperors. Human pride has created the power of the kings, God’s mercy has created the power of the bishops. The Pope is the master of emperors.’ This is Hildebrand’s declaration.
There was bound to be trouble between him and the Emperor. Henry iv. was a clever emperor. It was his custom, and the custom of the nobles, to create bishops in Germany, giving them the ring and crozier as symbols of their office. This distinctly meant that the bishops were to obey the Emperor first, and the Pope afterwards. To this Hildebrand could never agree.
In 1075 Hildebrand declared that ‘ If any emperor, king, duke, marquis or count, or any lay person or power has the presumption to grant investiture, let him know that he is excommunicated.’ So the Pope announced his intention to take away from the Emperor the bishops, on whom the Emperor depended for the administering of his kingdom. Henry soon answered.
‘ Henry, King, not through usurpation but through the holy ordination of God, to Hildebrand, at present not Pope but false monk — descend and relinquish the chair which thou hast usurped. Let another ascend the throne of Saint Peter, who shall not practise violenee under the cloak of religion, but shall teach the sound doctrine of Saint Peter. I, Henry, King by the Grace of God, do say to thee descend, descend, to be damned throughout all ages.’
The Pope’s reply begins: ‘ O Saint Peter, chief of the apostles, incline to us, I beg, thy holy ears and hear me, thy servant, whom thou hast nourished from infancy and whom until this day thou hast freed from the hand of the wicked who have hated and do hate me,’ . . . and it ends, ‘ I absolve all Christians from the bonds of the oath which they have made to Henry, the Emperor, and I forbid any one to serve him as king. And since he has scorned to obey as a Christian, and has not returned to God whom he deserted, I bind him with the chain of anathema.’
Nearly all Italy came to the side of the Pope, the Normans, Matilda of Tuscany, and the great Lombard towns. Hildebrand made friends even in Henry’s Germany. Henry had to struggle against his own nobles. In a council or diet of the empire of Germany, in 1077, they spoke against him to his face, hoping that the Pope would come to Augsburg, to attend the next diet, and depose Henry from the throne.
The Emperor thought he had better make himself safe. He crossed the Alps in winter-time. Hildebrand was residing at the castle of Canossa, guest of Matilda of Tuscany. Canossa is on the northern slopes of the Apennines. The w
eather was cold, snow lay on the ground. The Emperor sent messengers, asking to be allowed to present himself before the Pope, to sue for pardon. Hildebrand refused. On three consecutive days the Emperor came humbly to the door of the castle, barefooted and penitent in the snow, and three times Hildebrand had him driven away. But at last Matilda persuaded the Pope to receive the Emperor. Henry was admitted. He threw himself at the feet of Hildebrand, was raised and pardoned. ‘ Conquered by the persistency of his compunction and by the constant supplications of all those who were present, we loosed the chain of the anathema and at length received him into the favour of communion, and into the life of the holy mother Church.’ So says Hildebrand, Pope Gregory vn.
But Henry was not as humble as he seemed. He had saved himself in Germany by this submission. He went home, gathered his power, and again defied the Pope. He was again deposed. Then Henry in his turn declared Hildebrand to be no longer pope, and bestowed the title on a German bishop. Then he marched with a great German army over the mountains and passes of the Tyrol, entering Italy by way of Verona. He advanced to the walls of Rome, but owing to malaria in his army was forced to retire. But three years later, in 1084, he was again before the gates of Rome. He took the city, and besieged the Pope in the castle of St. Angelo. Hildebrand appealed wildly to Robert Guiscard and the Normans. Robert, who did not want an emperor in Rome, hastily advanced from besieging Durazzo on the Adriatic, and saved the Pope. But the German host of the Emperor plundered Rome as it had never before been plundered, neither by the Goths under Alaric nor by the Vandals under Genseric.
For bringing this upon them, the Roman people turned with hate on their Pope, so he departed, and shortly died in Salerno. ‘ I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity,’ he said, ‘ and therefore I die in exile.’
Henry iv. died in 1106, but the struggle went on. In the Concordat of Worms, 1122, it was agreed that the election of the bishops should be left in the hands of the Church, that the ring and the crozier should be bestowed by the Pope. But the Emperor or his representative was to be present at all elections, and disputed elections were to be referred to him. All bishops, moreover, were to do homage to the Emperor for the lands they held in his dominions. This left the Emperor, in Germany at least, lord of his bishops still.
This, however, was not an end to the struggle between Pope and Emperor. The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire claimed, by his very title, a sort of universal sovereignty. And the Pope claimed the highest authority of all. So how could these opposite claims be settled by settling this investiture of bishops? And yet the early emperors were good Catholics, they loved the popes, in their way; and the popes respected the greatness of the emperors. It was again the great power of Germany balancing the power of Rome. But this time it was not nation against nation, but the spiritual power against the military. Hildebrand had united his Church over the whole of Europe, as if it were one great monastery which he governed. The clergy owed their allegiance to God and the Pope, nothing to the Emperor, the kings or barons. All over Europe one language, Latin, was spoken by the clergy, one doctrine taught. At the same time the church lands were wide and rich as the lands of the empire, though the estates of the Church were scattered over every country. It was Hilde- brand’s idea to use kings and their soldiers, all the kings of Europe, as servants of the Church. It was Henry’s idea to make the clergy serve the interests of the empire.
We must not imagine that Germany was a kingdom such as we understand kingdoms. It was a confederacy of great independent dukedoms. When one king died, the next was chosen by the great dukes, from among themselves. And just as the king was chicfly a duke, so the emperor was, in the first place, duke of his own lands, then elected king of Germany, then crowned emperor by the Pope. Germany was growing. Austria was the great Mark or border province to the east, Brandenburg to the north. New dukes, margraves and counts arose, new electors.
In 1152 Frederick, called Barbarossa, or Red Beard, was elected King of Germany and then crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He was, in the first place, Duke of Franconia and Suabia: that is of South Germany, from the Lake of Constance northwards to Lorraine. He was Frederick Hohenstaufen, of the Castle of Wibelin, in Suabia. His House was called the Hohenstaufen, his faction was called the Ghibelin by the Italians, who could not pronounce Wibelin. Another great man in Germany at this time was Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. He came of the Bavarian House of Welf, called Guelph by the Italians. Frederick and Henry represent the two great factions of Guelph and Ghibelin, which fought one another for so many hundreds of years in Germany and Italy.
Frederick, when he became emperor, knew he must keep Henry the Lion friendly, otherwise this fierce duke would cause a revolution in Germany. So he gave him the dukedom of Bavaria, and Henry remained true to the cause of the Emperor. To the north Saxony was shut off from the Baltic. Henry, who was powerful and practically an independent king, seized Bremen from its owners, the military archbishops, and secured Lubeck from Adolph of Holstein. In these and other cities of the Baltic seaboard he started the great Baltic trade, with Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and even England. The land edging the Baltic was marshy: he invited hosts of settlers from Flanders and Holland, and set them to work draining and clearing the land, for farming. Then he united with the king of Denmark and smashed the Slavonic pirates who preyed on the Baltic trade. Wherever he could he ousted the Slavs from North Germany. When he could not oust them, he converted them to Christianity, sending the monks to preach to them. Thus the Slavs in Prussia and Mecklenburg and Pomerania became subject. He captured the Holy Isle of Rugen, which was the centre of the mysterious Slavonic worship, and destroyed its most sacred temple. Then he created bishoprics in his new towns, Schwerin, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, etc., and the bishops were fighting vassals of his. Thus he had a vast kingdom in Germany, many towns he owned, active in trade, and an important sea-power. But the people hated him, because he trampled over them brutally. He became so proud, that when the Emperor Frederick called to him for help, he calmly refused to send any men to Italy, in answer to the summons. But in 1181 he had to submit to the Emperor, because the other dukes and counts went against him.
In Germany Frederick Barbarossa tried to make some order. The dukes and counts and nobles were always fighting among themselves. Along the Rhine, that great river of commerce, and along the chief roads rose impregnable castles of robber knights who preyed upon the surrounding country. He issued a General Peace Constitution, establishing agreements among neighbouring lords to keep the peace. He cleared away many robber knights, he encouraged trade, he held great Diets or Councils to establish laws. The country became more prosperous, education began to spread, poets sprang up, and the new songs and ballads were sung, in the German tongue, from one end of the land to the other. Then Frederick, who had gathered large estates for himself, had his son crowned King of Rome, so that the empire should pass from father to son, and not be subject to election.
None the less, Barbarossa could not stay in Germany, he must try to rule Italy. Over the Alps he went, with his train of attendants and soldiers, and in 1154 descended with his numerous host in Lombardy. He still imagined himself ruler of the great Roman Empire of Hadrian or Diocletian. Frederick was crowned in Rome by Adrian iv., once called Nicolas Breakspear, the English Pope. All was very fine and splendid. But before Frederick left Italy, Pope and Emperor had definitely quarrelled, over the question of precedence. Would Frederick hold the bridle of the Pope’s horse? Barbarossa said no, for he was greatest. The Pope claimed supremacy for himself. The old quarrel at once began.
Adrian died, and the Pope Alexander m. was set up. Alexander had insulted the Emperor. Therefore Barbarossa refused to acknowledge him, and set up Victor iv., the anti-Pope. War followed. The Pope Alexander was chased about Italy by the armies of Frederick. But the great Lombard cities stood solid against the Emperor. He besieged Milan for three years, till it yielded to starvation. Then he razed it to the ground, in 1162. He drove Alexander into Franc
e, after which he himself departed for Germany. Alexander at once returned to Rome, Milan was rebuilt, and in 1166 Frederick was once more forced to march down with a great army to Italy.
Again he drove the Pope from the Holy City. Alexander fled to the Normans of Sicily. But a terrible pestilence broke out in the German armies, as so often happened, and thousands of the soldiers fell into the grave. Frederick returned to Germany, forced to leave Italy to herself, for the cities of the Lombard league were too strong against him.
The famous cities built the strong fortress, called Alessandria, in honour of their Pope, south-west of Milan, to protect that city. In 1174 Barbarossa came to subdue Alessandria. The siege went on till 1175. Then relieving armies came. It was at this time that Frederick sent to Germany, to Henry the Lion, for help, which Henry refused.
Frederick decided to march on Milan. The cities of the League determined to stop him. They went swiftly against him, and met him at Legnano in 1176. A picked body of the soldiers of the League, called the Company of Death, surrounded the wagon on which their standard stood, determined to fight to the last gasp rather than give in to this emperor from the north. Frederick nearly succeeded in cutting his way through to the wagon, but he was unhorsed, and all the efforts of his German knights were powerless. He was badly defeated, and fled, almost alone, to his faithful town of Pavia.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 903