ITALY (HISTUKV.) 



residence in the country. After the death of I.iun- 

 U'rt and Arnold (81)8 and 8<JL>), Louis, king of Lower 

 Hiirundy, became tlie competitor of Berengarius I.; 

 ami this bold and noble prince, although crowned 

 king in 804, and emperor in 915, did not enjoy quiet 

 till he hud expelled the emperor Louis III. (90S), and 

 vanquished another competitor, Rodolph of Upper 

 Burgundy : he was even then unable, on account of 

 tlie feeble condition of the state, to defend the king- 

 dom effectively against the invasions of the Saracens 

 (from 890) and the Hungarians (from 899). After the 

 assassination of Berengarius (924), Rodolph II. re- 

 linquished his claims to Hugh, count of Provence, in 

 exchange fur that country, (high sought to strengthen 

 the insecure throne of Italy oy a bloody tyranny. 

 His nephew, Berengarius, marquis of Ivrea, fled from 

 his snnres to Otho the Great of Germany (940), 

 assembled an army of fugitives, returned, and over- 

 threw Hugh (945), who was succeeded by his son 

 Lothaire. Berengarius became his first counsellor. 

 But, after the death of Lothaire, in 950 (poisoned, it 

 wa said, by Berengarius), the latter wished to com- 

 pel his widow the beautiful Adelaide contrary to 

 her inclination, to marry his son. Escaping from 

 his cruelty and her prison, she took refuge in the 

 castle of Canossa, where, she was besieged by Beren- 

 garius II. She now applied for aid to Otho I., king 

 of Germany, who passed the Alps, liberated her, 

 conquered Pavia, became king of the Franks and 

 Lombards (in 951), and married Adelaide. To a 

 prompt submission, and the cession of Friuli, the key 

 of Italy, which Otho gave to his brother Henry, 

 Berengarius was indebted for permission to reign as 

 the vassal of Otho. But, the nobles of Italy prefer- 

 ring new complaints against him, ten years after, 

 Otho returned (961), deposed him, and led him pri- 

 soner to Bamberg and, after having been himself 

 crowned king of Italy with the iron crown, in 961, 

 united this kingdom with the German. Otho gave 

 the great imperial fiefs to Germans, and granted to 

 the Italian cities privileges that were the foundation 

 of a free constitution, for which they soon became 

 ripe. The growing wealth of the papal court, owing 

 to the munificence of the French kings, which had 

 promoted their influence on the government, so bene- 

 ficial under Leo IV., and popes of a similar charac- 

 ter, became, through the corruption of the Roman 

 court, in the tenth century, the first cause of its de- 

 cline. The clergy and the people elected the popes 

 according to the will of the consuls and a few patri- 

 cians. In the first half of the tenth century, two 

 women disposed of the holy chair. Theodora elevated 

 (914) her lover John X.,and Marozia, the daughter 

 of Theodora, elevated her son, John XL, to the papal 

 dignity. The brother of the latter, Alberic of Caine- 

 rino, and his son Octavian, were absolute masters of 

 Rome, and the last was pope, under the name of John 

 XII., when twenty years of age (956). Otho the 

 Great, whom he had crowned emperor in Rome, in 

 962, deposed him, and chose Leo VIII. in his stead ; 

 but the people, jealous of its right of election, chose 

 Benedict V. From this time, the popes, instead of 

 ruling the people of Rome, became dependent on 

 them. In lower Italy, the republics of Naples, Gaeta, 

 and Amalfi still defended their independence against 

 the Lombard duchy of Benevento, with the more 

 ease, since the duchy had been divided (839) between 

 Siconolphus of Salerno and Radelghisius of Bene- 

 vento, and subsequently among a greater number, and 

 since with the dukes they had had a common enemy 

 in the Saracens, who had been previously invited over 

 from Sicily by both parties (about 830), as auxiliaries 

 against each other, but who had settled and main- 

 tained themselves in Apulia. The emperors Louis 

 II. and Basilius Macedo had, with combined forces. 



broken the power of the Mussulmans (SOU); tlie for- 

 mer was, nevertheless, unable to maintain himself in 

 Lower Italy, but the Greeks, on the contrary, gained 

 a firmer footing, and formed, of the regions taken 

 from the Saracens, a separate province, called the 

 Thema of Lombardy, which continued under their 

 dominion, though without prejudice to the liberty 

 of the republics, upwards of a hundred years, being 

 governed by a catapan (governor-general) at Bari. 

 Otho the Great himself did not succeed in driving 

 them altogether from Italy. The marriage of his 

 son, Otho II., with the Greek princess Theophania, 

 put an end to his exertions for this purpose, as did 

 the unfortunate battle at Basentello to the similar 

 attempts renewed by Otho II. (980). 



Fourth Period. From Otho the Great to Gregory 

 VII. (1073). The Dominion of the German Kings. 

 In opposition to the designs of the count of Tuscu- 

 lum, who wished to supplant the absent emperor at 

 Rome, a noble Roman, the consul Crescentius, 

 attempted to govern Rome under the semblance oi 

 her ancient liberty (980). Otho II., king since 973, 

 occupied with his projects of conquest in Lower 

 Italy, did not interfere with .this administration, 

 which became formidable to the vicious popes Boni- 

 face VII. and John XV. But, when Otho III., 

 who had reigned in Germany since 983, raised his 

 kinsman Gregory V. to the popedom, Crescentius 

 caused the latter to be expelled, and John XVI., a 

 Greek, to be elected by the people. He also endea- 

 voured to place Rome again under the nominal 

 supremacy of the Byzantine empire. Otho, how- 

 ever, reinstated Gregory, besieged Crescentius in the 

 castle of St Angelo, took him prisoner, and caused 

 him to be beheaded with twelve other noble Romans 

 (998). But the Romans again threw off their allegi- 

 ance to the emperor, and yielded only to force. Oi 

 the death of Otho III. (1002), the Italians considered 

 their connexion with the German empire as dissolved. 

 Harduin, marquis of Ivrea, was elected king, and 

 crowned at Pavia. Tin's was a sufficient motive for 

 Milan, the enemy of Pavia, to declare for Henry II. 

 (in Italy, I.) of Germany. A civil war ensued, iii 

 which every city, relying on its walls, took a greater 

 or less part. Henry was chosen king of Italy, by 

 the nobles assembled in Pavia ; but disturbances 

 arose, in which a part of the city was destroyed by 

 fire (A. D. 1004). Not till after Harduin's death 

 (1015) was Henry recognised as king by all Lom- 

 bardy ; he was succeeded by Conrad II. (in Italy I.) 

 At a diet held at Roncaglia, near Piacenza, in 1037, 

 Conrad made the fiefs hereditary by a fundamental 

 law of the empire, and endeavoured to give stability 

 and tranquillity to the state, but without success. The 

 cities (which were daily becoming more powerful) and 

 the bishops were engaged in continual quarrels with 

 the nobility, and the nobility with their vassals which 

 could not be repressed. Republican Rome, under 

 the influence of the family of Crescentius, could be 

 reduced to obedience neither by Henry II. and 

 Conrad II. nor by the popes. When Henry III. (in 

 Italy, II)., the son and successor of Conrad (1039), 

 entered Italy (1040), he found three popes in Rome, 

 all of whom he deposed, appointed in their stead 

 Clement II., and ever after filled the papal chair, by 

 his own authority, with virtuous German ecclesiastics. 

 This reform gave the popes new consequence, which 

 afterwards became fatal to his successor. Henry 

 died in 1056. During the long minority of his SOB 

 Henry IV. (in Italy, III.), the policy of the popes, 

 directed by the monk Hildebrand (afterwards Gre- 

 gory VII.), succeeded in creating an opposition, 

 which soon became formidable to the secular power. 

 (See Pope.} The Normans also contributed to this 

 result. As early as 1016, warriors from Normandy 



