ITALY. 



337 



BUST?. 



Who 



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Othodin. 

 A.D. 973. 



. i). ; 



her escape, and take refuge in the strong fortress of 

 Canossa, from whence she sent to implore the protec- 

 tion of Otho of Saxony, King of Germany. 



Otho, interested by the misfortunes of Adelaide, in- 

 vaded Italy with a powerful array, and having accept- 

 ed of Berenger's homage, delivered the empress, and 

 was soon after married to her. The tyranny of Beren- 

 ger soon alienated the affections of his subjects ; and 

 being again invaded by Otho, whose kindness he had 

 returned with ingratitude, he was deserted by his sol- 

 diers, and obliged to abdicate the throne. In jt'il, 

 Otho was crowned king of Italy at Milan, and the 

 ' year following emperor, by the Pope. On this occa- 

 sion treaty was concluded, by which, while the su- 

 premacy in ecclesiastical affairs was allowed to the 

 Pope, the emperor's temporal sovereignty was distinct- 

 ly recognized. Although this acknowledgement of the 

 power of the emperor was extremely disagreeable to 

 the popes, (and they frequently contrived to stir up re- 

 bellion}, yet, on the appearance of a German army, the 

 principle was always acknowledged ; and, for 500 years 

 after Otho the Great, Italy was considered a fief of 

 the German empire. At the time of the death of this 

 excellent prince, in 973, Italy was divided into the 

 .*.* of Apulia and Calabria, still claimed by the 

 Greeks ; the duksdoms of Benevento, Capua, Naples, 

 and Salerno; the Roman territory, which, with the 

 marquisate of Ancona, exarchate of Ravenna, constitu- 

 ted the patrimony of the church ; the dukedom of Spo- 

 letta and Tuscany, which were considered a* fiefs of 

 the Church ; and Lombardy, with the marquisates of 

 Verona, Friouli. Treviso, and Genoa, constituted the 

 kingdom of Italy properly so called. But the autho- 

 rity of the successors of Otho, even in the kingdom 

 of Italy, was of a very precarious nature. Over the he- 

 reditary fiefs the sovereign jurisdiction was merely no- 

 minal, and only acknowledged during the presence of 

 the peror and his army. The lesser baron* found 

 it more for their interest to bestow their homage upon, 

 and look for protection from a powerful neighbour 

 than their dutant sovereign; while in the privileged 

 in which the spirit of liberty was already begin- 

 ning to manifest itself, the show of adherence to the 

 emperor was maintained by those only which were 

 tost independent, while many were obliged to place 

 themselves under the protection of some powerful Ita- 

 lian prince, or baron, who, under the title of " Podes- 

 ta." exercised a species of sovereign jurisdiction. The 

 effect of the death of Otho the Great on a kingdom 

 thus constituted may be easily imagined ; ami, during 

 the reigns of Otho II. and III., Henry of Bavaria, Con- 

 rad, and Henry HI., Italy presented but a scene of 

 anarchy and confusion ; of contests between rival popes, 

 between the pope and the citizens of Home, and the 

 emperor and his Italian vassals. 



On the accession of Henry 1 1 1. there were no less 

 than three popes at once, and all of them obnoxious, 

 from the immorality of their character. The emperor 

 having deposed the various competitors himself, nomi- 

 nated Pope Clement II., and bound the Romans, by an 

 oath, never in future to elect a pope without the empe- 

 ror's approbation. In this he was unsuccessful ; for 

 the next pope, Leo IX., persuaded by the celebrated 

 Hildebrand, declined assuming the pontifical honours 

 until authorised by the cardinals; and Nicholas II., 

 who was pope dunng the minority of Henry IV., pas- 

 sed a decree, that the power of electing future popes 

 should reside with the sacred college alone. The jea- 



VOL. Xir.-pAHT (. 



lousy of the Emperor Henry III. was also excited by History. 

 the rising power of Godfrey, Duke of Spoleto, who, ha- '""Y"*"' 

 ving married Matilda, heiress of Tuscany and Mantua, 

 the emperor's niece, and having succeeded in getting 

 his brother elected pope, by the name of Stephen IX., 

 exercised an authority in Italy almost equal to that of 

 Henry. On the death of that prince, Godfrey enter- 

 tained great hopes of being elected king of Italy ; 

 these ambitious expectations were, hnwcvrr, blasted by 

 the death of the pope ; but Godfrey still continued 

 one of the most powerful princes in Italy till his death 

 in 1076, when his widow, Matilda, was left sole mis- 

 tress of his influence and authority. 



The reign of Henry III. is also remarkable for the 

 first appearance, in history, of the Norman princes in 

 Apulia, who were afterwards the founders of the king- 

 doms of Naples and Sicily ; and for the first alliance 'of 

 the emperor with the republic of Venice ; which had 

 now ceased to pay its former homage to the Grecian 

 emperor, and had already risen to a great degree of 

 wealth and power, having, with its rivals the Pisans, 

 Genoese, and the republic of Auialnhi, engrossed all 

 the commerce of Europe. 



The reign of Henry IV. is distinguished by his long Henry TV. 

 and violent contests with the pontiffs. During a long 

 minority, in which the young emperor was entrusted 

 to the guardianship of the popes, their power and ambi- 

 tion so much increased, that they openly aimed at uni- 

 versal dominion, and from the subjects, became the 

 Blasters of the secular princes ; and, for 70 years, the 

 history of Italy presents little else but a series of strug- 

 gles between weak and vicious monarchs, and ambi- 

 tious and unprincipled priests. The history of the hu- 

 miliating submission of Hrnry IV. to Pope Gregory 

 VII. the haughty Ilildebrsnd, is well known; and the 

 unnatural wars which the pope occasioned, by exciting 

 Henry's sons to rebel against their father, excite more 

 disgust than interest 



About thi period a new cause of disagreement arose niffcrenat 

 between the emperors and the papal see. The Coun- between the 

 tess Matilda, widow of Guelph, duke of Bavaria, hav- emperors 

 ing died, bequeathed all her immense possessions to nd the P- 

 the see of Rome. These consisted of the greater part *?*' 

 of Tuscany, of Mantua, Parma, Placentia, Ferrara, 

 Modena, \ erona, Viterbo, and Orvieto, part of Um- 

 bria, Spoleto, and the marquisate of Ancona. As it 

 was not considered lawful for a female to alienate the 

 fiefs of the empire, the Emperor I lenry V. disregarding 

 this bequest, seized on the succession ; and, although 

 by the convention at Worms, a temporary agreement A.D. II 21. 

 was entered into by the Pope Pascal ; yet, as we 

 shall see afterwards, the validity of the bequest was 

 long maintained by the church and its supporters, 

 which occasioned much jealousy and contention be- 

 tween the emperor and his Italian vassals. 



1 hiring the reigns of the emperors of the house of Sax- chance In 

 ony, the political state of Italy had undergone a re- the political 

 markable change. About a century before, Otho I. Rate of 

 had allowed to most of the Italian cities a regular mu- Iul y- 

 nicipal government, and had left to themselves the 

 choice of a particular form. In the exercise of this 

 power they seem generally to have selected as a model 

 the Roman republic or its colonies, as far at least as 

 their limited acquaintance with history would permit. 

 At the head of their administration were placed two 

 consuls, elected annually by the suffrages of the peo- 

 ple. These magistrates, as judges, were entrusted 

 with the care of administering justice to their fellow 



