All the resources of Sicily were now strained to supply the Emperor with what he needed for the Italian war. Thanks to the efficient and well-disciplined officials the entire reorganisation of the kingdom was possible, without any serious hitch, in spite of the absence of the ruler. But the Emperor could not leave the pick of his younger officials in Sicily: he wanted large numbers for Italy. Sicily began to suffer the fate that always overtakes the homeland of a conqueror: she was unduly drained of strength which served the monarch’s world dominion but not the State herself. Frederick II had had, as a young Emperor, to reconquer his ruined kingdom; during his lawgiving period he had shown himself in wonderful harmony with his new-created State; now, as Caesar, he had far outgrown the State in which he had his roots, and he now drew means and might from her to overcome and harmonise the larger world without. With other rulers of the same calibre that would have meant at his age an overflowing into distant regions: Frederick II’s case was different. His world-empire was Italy, and he poured means and men not into distant lands but into the core of the ancient imperium which more and more sucked the life-blood of the universe.
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At the same uncanny speed and in the same masterful fashion the Grand Seignory of Italy was now established whose capital was to be Rome. Soon after his excommunication Frederick announced “our heart yearns to see Italy re-established under the imperial banner.” No further consideration need be extended to the Pope. As priest Gregory had excommunicated the Emperor; as Italian prince and Ruler of the States of the Church he had declared war by allying himself with Venice, Genoa and the rest; Frederick could, without scruple, extend the boundaries of his Italian domain even further than he had originally intended. There was no need for tenderness towards the States of the Church, least of all the two imperial provinces, the March of Ancona and Spoleto which Frederick had been compelled as a boy to renounce, and which most inconveniently barred his passage from Italy to Sicily. Frederick declared these two “natural provinces of the Empire” confiscate, and in accordance with Roman law justified this resumption of the two districts of which a gift had been made to the Pope, by the simple phrase “ingratitude of the recipient.” By the time that Frederick made this announcement the organisation of the new realm was already well under way.
The creative construction was speedy, thorough and drastic; within a few months, lo! the State stood there complete. It usually required decades if not centuries during the Middle Ages for much slighter reconstructions gradually to work themselves out. Frederick II suddenly evolved a new, rational constitution for Italy and carried it through at one swoop. It is true that certain preliminaries had been disposed of some years before. At the Diet of Turin, immediately after the victory of Cortenuova which opened Italy to him, Frederick had instituted the first Vicariate General or Captaincy General (the new provinces were called by either name and their governors were either Vicars General or Captains General). This was the province known as “Upper Pavia,” which embraced West Lombardy and Piedmont. The main work was done now, however, as a counter measure to the Pope’s attack.
The excommunication silenced the last of Frederick’s scruples, and he immediately completed, with the utmost speed, what he had already begun. His hasty journeys to and fro through Italy were not only campaigns against the rebels: wherever he appeared a new province sprang, fully organised, to life. The news of the excommunication reached him in Padua at the beginning of April 1239. On May 1st he inaugurated the Vicariate General of the Trevisan March, in June, probably during his stay in Cremona, that of “Lower Pavia” with Cremona roughly as its centre. The kingdom of Burgundy was at the same time constituted a Vicariate General and incorporated into the Italian system, though less strictly dragooned than the other provinces. Still in that same June, at the time of the Bologna campaign, Frederick added the Romagna to the others, first as an immediate Vicariate and later as a Vicariate General. The campaign against Piacenza and Milan caused a short interruption till a successful winter campaign opened central Italy. Under circumstances similar to the Romagna’s Frederick in December 1239 incorporated the Ligurian coast province under the name of the “Lunigiana”; this was later enlarged by the addition of the Versiglia and Garfagnana, and raised to the rank of a Vicariate General. In January 1240 the Vicariate General of Tuscany followed, and in the same month two further creations, that of the Ancona March and of the Duchy of Spoleto. In February the conquered portions of the States of the Church, papal Tuscany, in particular, with Viterbo as its centre, were formed into a Vicariate General, “from Amelia through the Maritima to Cometo.” A year later Frederick created the province of Narni also from Church territory. If we add to these the two new provinces of Sicily which adjoined on the South we find the whole of Italy, with the exception of a few remaining fragments of the Patrimonium and the few rebel towns, clearly and consistently organised in one solid block, and working under one unified imperial administration ruled by the iron will of the Italian Super-Tyrant.
The whole organism of this State, which the excommunicate Emperor had fashioned under war conditions, was fluid and elastic for all its massiveness and solidity, and according to the fortunes of war or other needs could be regrouped as necessary. The large Captaincies General like Tuscany, Upper Pavia and others were subdivided as required into Captaincies, somewhat as the justiciars’ provinces were. The new State was fashioned with some exactness on the Sicilian model, only the new creation was incomparably more powerful. Beside the mighty machinery of this imperial State Sicily appeared like some finely chiselled toy. A few indications will reveal the character of the world-monarchy that was enshrined in Italy.
Every great man meets sooner or later with world opposition, a united resistance from the peoples who feel themselves threatened. Frederick II met this coalition of hostile powers not on the periphery of his domains, on the unthreatened frontiers of the Roman Empire, but in its innermost recesses in the Caesar-Papacy and the Lombard towns. He had to operate with all the human and material resources of his outlying lands and peoples, even seeking support from foreign kings in East and West, in order to consolidate the universal state in the very centre of his Empire. The narrow compass of Italy saw the concentration and accumulation of these forces. This is the beginning of that concentration of a maximum of might in a minimum of space which characterises the Renaissance. In the centre of it all towered Rome, the capital of the world, the goal desired. Centering on Rome there arises that unique Super-seignory of Italy which shows in incredible concentration all the characteristics of a world-empire like Napoleon’s. Dignity and importance were lent to this creation of a State by the passion and intensity with which the hostile powers organised their opposition, in whose despite Frederick II succeeded in establishing his despotism in its naked simplicity and grandeur.
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The spirit of the new State was akin to that of the Sicilian Tyranny; the commissions of the officials expressed the same state philosophy and doctrines of salvation; but apart from such by-laws as the organisation of the bureaucracy rendered necessary there was no need for fresh legislation. Frederick II’s Grand Seignory revived the Imperium Romanum, Italy was to live again under the standards of the Caesars; it was axiomatic that Roman law should rule in the new Roman provinces.
The Italian towns had long ago adopted and administered Roman law. The new event was that a great State, fulfilled with the spirit of the Roman law, had come again to birth in the very heart of the Empire; that the provinces of Italy were again parts of a monumental whole which a new Caesar, with his officials, held firmly in his grip; that a new Augustus again administered justice according to ancient formulas, from whose rule the salvation of the world should spring. The Renovatio Imperii Romanorum had been accomplished on Italian soil. Frederick II had quietly abandoned his first intention of filling all the provincial governorships with Romans “of the blood of Romulus.” Handicapped by the papal ban he needed the most trustworthy agents he could command, and o
nly Sicily supplied them.
The new government had been speedily and drastically introduced, its strict and exact operation was no less drastic. There was no existing constitution to which it could be linked, as there had been in Sicily, so existing institutions had for the most part simply to be swept away. Imperial authority in Italy had hitherto been exercised solely through the imperial legates, invariably German bishops and German nobles. There had originally been one single legate only for the whole of Italy, but as early as 1222 Frederick II had divided this unmanageably large district into two legations, one for Northern and one for Central Italy. These German imperial legates with wide powers and long terms of office enjoyed considerable independence, but their influence was nevertheless limited by having no substructure of subordinate officials. They floated vaguely as it were in space. There was no place for them in the new efficient intensive administration of the Emperor, and they were abolished. Their wide districts were broken up into the various Vicariates General, which permitted firm and immediate action. Instead of the independent legate, representative of the Emperor, dependent officials were installed to be the Emperor’s executive officers, probably enjoying the civil and military powers of a justiciar. Finally, instead of the lengthy tenure of office which had been the prerogative of the legation, the short term usual in Sicily was introduced even for Vicars General, and exchange of officers was frequent, if not invariable, to avoid any fraternisation with the ruled. When these imperial officials were posted as podestas in an important town the town was most strictly forbidden to elect a successor at the expiry of their year of office, as had been the Italian custom.
The old title of Legate was preserved in one case only: King Enzio was styled Legate General for the whole of Italy. He was tied to no province, but free to act where circumstances made action desirable. He was the Emperor’s viceroy. Frederick was thus able simply to double throughout Italy the influence of his presence and personality by his son, his “living image.” Enzio was placed over the Vicars General, who had to accept his orders as his father’s, though they derived their authority like Enzio himself direct from the Emperor and not through the Legate General.
With few exceptions the appointment of officials even of the lowest grades was reserved for the Emperor alone. This was in Italy as in Sicily the basis of Frederick’s absolute monarchy. Through the length and breadth of Italy the will of the Emperor must be supreme down to the lowest strata in the State. There was no room in the imperial State for independently elected authorities, whether feudal or municipal. Henceforward, with due allowance for varying local conditions, one uniform imperial administration was to prevail. Marches and Palatinates were as far as possible incorporated in the Empire, especially if their holders were disaffected. Many of the great nobles, especially in the North, were given office in the service of the State. The rights of feudal lords and the rights of towns, however, were recognised only with reservations, and only in so far as they did not run counter to the general organisation of the State. The custom which the Communes had had of choosing from a friendly town an independent podesta for themselves had now to be given up. The annual governor of the more important towns was now appointed by the Emperor from amongst the Vicars General, or else the Emperor took the post in his own name and appointed a representative. Here and there the right of electing a podesta was conceded, but hedged by such restrictions that in fact the actual choice was the Emperor’s. No loophole was left by which a podesta could be elected who was not persona grata to the Emperor.
Frederick II had thus in a short time extended his imperial bureaucracy over the whole of Italy. In addition to the Vicars General and imperial podestas an army of sub-vicars, fortress-captains, finance officials, judicial and chancery officers, and various subordinates held the country in subjection. The official discipline was as usual extremely severe. To facilitate supervision the Vicars General were obliged to submit lists of all posts vacant in their provinces, and also salary-lists. For the officials were paid direct from Frederick’s treasury or else from the revenues of the towns entrusted to them, but subject to fixed standards. Officials were instructed to be satisfied with their salary, to keep their hands clean and to avoid simony, which was sternly penalised. An official hierarchy was established throughout Italy in opposition to, or more accurately in supersession of, the clerical hierarchy. The position of Church and episcopate was unambiguous: the Caesar accursed of the Church had created the State, and no writ but his could run therein.
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The most radical change was in the personnel itself of the new government. Hitherto the imperial services in Italy had employed one or two German legates, and the government of the towns had been directed by podestas from the aristocracy of Northern Italy. Suddenly a horde of Apulians flooded the country. Every stratum of the service was mainly, if not wholly, staffed by Apulians experienced in the work, whose loyalty was guaranteed by the property and families they had left behind in Sicily. The students of Bologna taunted the cities whose internal dissensions had brought them to such a pass that “they must render tribute to Caesar and weep under the Apulian yoke.” It was a foreign rule—but the rule of South Italians, not of Germans—which spread through the land. With the exception of the two quondam pages, the Hohenburg brothers, who were appointed to governorships, no German had any share in the administration. The two Hohenburgs, like the Apulian nobles, had been schooled in the Emperor’s immediate entourage, and Frederick now made the general pronouncement that he was entrusting these important offices for choice to those who had grown up at his own Court “because they are moved to accept the provinces entrusted to them by their zeal for our imperial honour.” Everything now hung on the utter trustworthiness, the personal loyalty and the blind obedience of the officials, since the Church by releasing all subjects from their allegiance to the Emperor invited them to disloyalty, and, indeed, rewarded it by benefits in this world and the next.
Thus all the familiar names suddenly reappear in the Italian administration, the young Sicilians, for the most part highly-gifted: the Filangieri and Eboli, Acquaviva and Aquino, Morra and Caraccioli. Besides these the Emperor’s sons; Enzio and Frederick of Antioch, the little known Richard of Theate and later King Henry, son of Isabella of England; further, his sons-in-law, the husbands of his natural daughters: Eccelino of Romano, Lord of the March of Treviso, and Jacob of Caretto, Margrave of Savona, Richard Caserta, and Thomas of Aquino the Younger. Finally, Manfred’s relations by marriage, the Margrave Galvano and Manfred Lancia and Count Thomas of Savoy. Italians of loyal families or from loyal towns were also sometimes employed, chiefly as podestas but sometimes in other offices; very rarely as Vicars General. Apart from Italian relatives of the Emperor the only ones so honoured were Percival Doria, already mentioned amongst the poets, and the wild Margrave Hubert Pallavicini who, with Eccelino, later became the first of the great Italian Signors in the Renaissance sense.
A contemporary styled the imperial Vicars General “princes,” principes, and this described the demeanour of these petty despots who called themselves “By the Grace of God and of the Emperor, Vicar General of Upper Pavia,” or merely “By the Grace of God Vicar General of Tuscany.” Their dependence on the Emperor was absolute, but in every other way their position was one of unlimited princely power, especially in the later days when the Vicars General were almost exclusively imperial Princes, sons-in-law and near relatives of Frederick II. These became, especially Eccelino and Pallavicini, who grew daily more and more independent, the very “mirror” of their imperial master down to the minutest external traits. They aped his love of luxury, of astrologers and menageries and Saracen satellites, even his intellectual activities and his flippant jests about Church dogma. The podestas of the great towns such as Florence, Pisa, Verona and Cremona, trod closely on their heels. In other circumstances these imperial representatives would probably have ruled as kings over vassal monarchies like the Napoleon relatives. It was characteristic of this inte
nsive rather than extensive state that wide kingdoms were compressed into small vicariates, or, rather, that these minute vicariates ruled by the sons of an Emperor should swell to the importance of duchies and of kingdoms. In this connection a remarkable scheme of the Emperor’s must be treated of later.
Meanwhile the historical importance of this last and greatest Germanic state foundation is to a certain extent already manifest, a state founded on Italian soil, founded, moreover, by the last Emperor of the Romans, with whom the old Imperium ceased to be. For these imperial Vicars General and these imperial podestas, these representatives and vicegerents are the direct ancestors of the Signors and Tyrants of the Renaissance. The office of podesta with its unlimited despotic power, especially when it became a life appointment, gradually came to equal the position of a prince. The great Signors of Italy, imitating the early Vicars General Eccelino and Hubert Pallavicini, for centuries styled themselves “Vicars” of the Emperor, until, about 1400, the German Emperors created Dukedoms of the Vicariates of the Visconti, the Este, the Gonzaga, etc. Let us grasp the full significance of Frederick’s Italian-Roman State: a mighty pan-Italian Seignory, which for a short time united in one State Germanic, Roman and Oriental elements. Frederick himself, Emperor of the World, being the Grand Signor, or Grand Tyrant thereof, the first and last of these princes to wear the diadem of Rome, whose Caesar-hood was not only allied with German kingship like Barbarossa’s but with Oriental-Sicilian despotism.
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