The Holy Roman Empire

282

The mediæval practice seems to have been that which still prevails in the Roman Catholic Church – to presume the doctrinal orthodoxy and external conformity of every citizen, whether lay or clerical, until the contrary be proved. Of course when heresy was rife it went hard with suspected men, unless they could either clear themselves or submit to recant. But no one was required to pledge himself beforehand, as a qualification for any office, to certain doctrines. And thus, important as an Emperor's orthodoxy was, he does not appear to have been subjected to any test, although the Pope pretended to the right of catechizing him in the faith and rejecting him if unsound. In the Ordo Romanus we find a long series of questions which the Pontiff was to administer, but it does not appear, and is in the highest degree unlikely, that such a programme was ever carried out.

The charge of heresy was one of the weapons used with most effect against Frederick II.

283

Honorius II in 1229 forbade it to be studied or taught in the University of Paris. Innocent IV published some years later a still more sweeping prohibition.

284

See Von Savigny, History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages, vol. iii. pp. 81, 341-347.

285

Charles the Bold of Burgundy was a potentate incomparably stronger than the Emperor Frederick III from whom he sought the regal title.

286

Cf. Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, iv. chap. xxvii.

287

See Dante, Paradiso, canto vi.

288

289

Purgatorio, canto vii.

290

Inferno, canto xxxiv.

291

Not that the doctors of the civil law were necessarily political partisans of the Emperors. Savigny says that there were on the contrary more Guelfs than Ghibelines among the jurists of Bologna. —Roman Law in the Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 80.

292

Cf. Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. ii. (of Otto and Adelheid). The Ordo Romanus talks of a 'Camera Iuliæ' in the Lateran palace, reserved for the Empress.

293

See notes to Chron. Casin. in Muratori, S. R. I. iv. 515.

294

Zu aller Zeiten Mehrer des Reichs.

295

Novellæ Constitutiones.

296

Marquard Freher. The question whether the seven electors vote as singuli or as a collegium, is solved by shewing that they have stepped into the place of the senate and people of Rome, whose duty it was to choose the Emperor, though (it is naïvely added) the soldiers sometimes usurped it. – Peter de Andlo, De Imperio Romano.

297

Thus Charles, in a capitulary added to a revised edition of the Lombard law issued in A.D. 801, says, 'Anno consulatus nostri primo.' So Otto III calls himself 'Consul Senatus populique Romani.'

298

Francis II, the last Emperor, was one hundred and twentieth from Augustus. Some chroniclers call Otto the Great Otto II, counting in Salvius Otho, the successor of Galba.

299

See p. 45 and note to p. 143.

300

Nürnberg herself was not of Roman foundation. But this makes the imitation all the more curious. The fashion even passed from the cities to rural communities like some of the Swiss cantons. Thus we find 'Senatus populusque Uronensis.'

301

See Palgrave, Normandy and England, i. p. 379.

302

Æneas Sylvius, De Ortu et Authoritate Imperii Romani.

303

Thus some civilians held Constantine's Donation null; but the canonists, we are told, were clear as to its legality.

304

'Et idem dico de istis aliis regibus et principibus, qui negant se esse subditos regi Romanorum, ut rex Franciæ, Angliæ, et similes. Si enim fatentur ipsum esse Dominum universalem, licet ab illo universali domino se subtrahant ex privilegio vel ex præscriptione vel consimili, non ergo desunt esse cives Romani, per ea quæ dicta sunt. Et per hoc omnes gentes quæ obediunt S. matri ecclesiæ sunt de populo Romano. Et forte si quis diceret dominum Imperatorem non esse dominum et monarcham totius orbis, esset hæreticus, quia diceret contra determinationem ecclesiæ et textum S. evangelii, dum dicit, "Exivit edictum a Cæsare Augusto ut describeretur universus orbis." Ita et recognovit Christus Imperatorem ut dominum.' – Bartolus, Commentary on the Pandects, xlviii. i. 24; De Captivis et postliminio reversis.

305

Peter de Andlo, multis locis (see esp. cap. viii.), and other writings of the time. Cf. Dante's letter to Henry VII: 'Romanorum potestas nec metis Italiæ nec tricornis Siciliæ margine coarctatur. Nam etsi vim passa in angustum gubernacula sua contraxit undique, tamen de inviolabili iure fluctus Amphitritis attingens vix ab inutili unda Oceani se circumcingi dignatur. Scriptum est enim

So Fr. Zoannetus, in the sixteenth century, declares it to be a mortal sin to resist the Empire, as the power ordained of God.

306

Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (afterwards Pope Pius II), De Ortu et Authoritate Imperii Romani. Cf. Gerlach Buxtorff, Dissertatio ad Auream Bullam.

307

It has hitherto been the common opinion that the De Monarchia was written in the view of Henry's expedition. But latterly weighty reasons have been advanced for believing that its date must be placed some years later.

308

Suggesting the celestial hierarchies of Dionysius the Areopagite.

309

Quoting Aristotle's Politics.

310

'Non enim cives propter consules nec gens propter regem, sed e converso consules propter cives, rex propter gentem.'

311

'Reges et principes in hoc unico concordantes, ut adversentur Domino suo et uncto suo Romano Principi,' having quoted 'Quare fremuerunt gentes.'

312

Especially in the opportune death of Alexander the Great.

313

Cic., De Off., ii. 'Ita ut illud patrocinium orbis terrarum potius quam imperium poterat nominari.'

314

'Si Pilati imperium non de iure fuit, peccatum in Christo non fuit adeo punitum.'

315

There is a curious seal of the Emperor Otto IV (figured in J. M. Heineccius, De veteribus Germanorum atque aliarum nationum sigillis), on which the sun and moon are represented over the head of the Emperor. Heineccius says he cannot explain it, but there seems to be no reason why we should not take the device as typifying the accord of the spiritual and temporal powers which was brought about at the accession of Otto, the Guelfic leader, and the favoured candidate of Pope Innocent III.

The analogy between the lights of heaven and the princes of earth is one which mediæval writers are very fond of. It seems to have originated with Gregory VII.

316

Typifying the spiritual and temporal powers. Dante meets this by distinguishing the homage paid to Christ from that which his Vicar can rightfully demand.

317

Hist. Eccl. l. ix. c. 6: τὸν δὲ φάναι, ὡς οὐχ ἑκὼν τάδε ἐπιχειρεῖ, ἀλλά τις συνεχῶς ἐνοχλῶν αὐτὸν βιάζεται, καὶ ἐπιτάττει τὴν Ῥώμην πορθεῖν.

318

See the two Lives of St. Adalbert in Pertz, M. G. H., iv., evidently compiled soon after his death.

319

Another letter of Petrarch's to John Colonna, written immediately after his arrival in the city, deserves to be quoted, it is so like what a stranger would now write off after his first day in Rome: – 'In præsens nihil est quod inchoare ausim, miraculo rerum tantarum et stuporis mole obrutus … præsentia vero, mirum dictu, nihil imminuit sed auxit omnia: vere maior fuit Roma maioresque sunt reliquiæ quam rebar: iam non orbem ab hac urbe domitum sed tam sero domitum miror. Vale.'

320

The idea of the continuance of the sway of Rome under a new character is one which mediæval writers delight to illustrate. In Appendix, Note D, there is quoted as a specimen a poem upon Rome, by Hildebert (bishop of Le Mans, and afterwards archbishop of Tours), written in the beginning of the twelfth century.

321

In writing this chapter I have derived much assistance from the admirable work of Ferdinand Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter. Unfortunately no English translation of it exists; but I am informed by the author that one is likely ere long to appear.

322

Republican forms of some sort had existed before Arnold's arrival, but we hear the name of no other leader mentioned; and doubtless it was by him chiefly that the spirit of hostility to the clerical power was infused into the minds of the Romans.

323

The series of papal coins is interrupted (with one or two slight exceptions) from A.D. 984 (not long after the time of Alberic) to A.D. 1304. In their place we meet with various coins struck by the municipal authorities, some of which bear on the obverse the head of the Apostle Peter, with the legend Roman. Pricipe: on the reverse the head of the Apostle Paul, legend, Senat. Popul. Q. R. Gregorovius, ut supra.

324

Rienzi called himself Augustus as well as tribune; 'tribuno Augusto de Roma.' (He pretended, or his friends pretended for him – it was at any rate believed – that he was an illegitimate son of the Emperor Henry the Seventh.) He cited, on his appointment, the Pope and cardinals to appear before the people of Rome and give an account of their conduct; and after them the Emperor. 'Ancora citao lo Bavaro (Lewis the Fourth). Puoi citao li elettori de lo imperio in Alemagna, e disse "Voglio vedere che rascione haco nella elettione," che trovasse scritto che passato alcuno tempo la elettione recadeva a li Romani.' —Vita di Cola di Rienzi, c. xxvi (written by a contemporary). I give the spelling as it stands in Muratori's edition.

325

The Germans called this hill, which is the highest in or near Rome, conspicuous from a beautiful group of stone-pines upon its brow, Mons Gaudii; the origin of the Italian name, Monte Mario, is not known, unless it be, as some think, a corruption of Mons Malus.

It was on this hill that Otto the Third hanged Crescentius and his followers.

326

I quote this from the Ordo Romanus as it stands in Muratori's third Dissertation in the Antiquitates Italiæ medii ævi.

327

Great stress was laid on one part of the procedure, – the holding by the Emperor of the Pope's stirrup for him to mount, and the leading of his palfrey for some distance. Frederick Barbarossa's omission of this mark of respect when Pope Hadrian IV met him on his way to Rome, had nearly caused a breach between the two potentates, Hadrian absolutely refusing the kiss of peace until Frederick should have gone through the form, which he was at last forced to do in a somewhat ignominious way.

328

A remarkable speech of expostulation made by Otto III to the Roman people (after one of their revolts) from the tower of his house on the Aventine has been preserved to us. It begins thus: 'Vosne estis mei Romani? Propter vos quidem meam patriam, propinquos quoque reliqui; amore vestro Saxones et cunctos Theotiscos, sanguinem meum, proieci; vos in remotas partes imperii nostri adduxi, quo patres vestri cum orbem ditione premerent numquam pedem posuerunt; scilicet ut nomen vestrum et gloriam ad fines usque dilatarem; vos filios adoptavi: vos cunctis prætuli.' —Vita S. Bernwardi; in Pertz, M. G. H., t. iv.

(It is from this form 'Theotiscus' that the Italian 'Tedesco' seems to have been derived.)

329

The Leonine city, so called from Pope Leo IV, lay between the Vatican and St. Peter's and the river.

330

It would seem that Otto was deceived, and that in reality they are the bones of St. Paulinus of Nola.

331

The only other of the Teutonic Emperors buried in Italy were, so far as I know, Lewis the Second (whose tomb, with an inscription commemorating his exploits, is built into the wall of the north aisle of the famous church of S. Ambrose at Milan), Henry the Sixth and Frederick the Second, who lie at Palermo, Conrad IV, buried at Foggia, and Henry the Seventh, whose sarcophagus may be seen in the Campo Santo of Pisa, a city always conspicuous for her zeal on the imperial side.

Six Emperors lie buried at Speyer, three or four at Prague, two at Aachen, two at Bamberg, one at Innsbruck, one at Magdeburg, one at Quedlinburg, two at Munich, and most of the later ones at Vienna.

332

See note s, p. 178.

333

See p. 117.

334

These highly curious frescoes are in the chapel of St. Sylvester attached to the very ancient church of Quattro Santi on the Cœlian hill, and are supposed to have been executed in the time of Pope Innocent III. They represent scenes in the life of the Saint, more particularly the making of the famous donation to him by Constantine, who submissively holds the bridle of his palfrey.

335

The last imperial coronation, that of Charles the Fifth, took place in the church of St. Petronius at Bologna, Pope Clement VII being unwilling to receive Charles in Rome. It is a grand church, but the choir, where the ceremony took place, seems to have been 'restored,' that is to say modernized, since Charles' time.

336

The name of Cenci is a very old one at Rome: it is supposed to be an abbreviation of Crescentius. We hear in the eleventh century of a certain Cencius, who on one occasion made Gregory VII prisoner.

337

Thus in the church of San Lorenzo without the walls there are several pointed windows, now bricked up; and similar ones may be seen in the church of Ara Cœli on the summit of the Capitol. So in the apse of St. John Lateran there are three or four windows of Gothic form: and in its cloister, as well as in that of St. Paul without the walls, a great deal of beautiful Lombard work. The elegant porch of the church of Sant' Antonio Abate is Lombard. In the apse of the church of San Giovanni e Paolo on the Cœlian hill there is an external arcade exactly like those of the Duomo at Pisa. Nor are these the only instances.

The ruined chapel attached to the fortress of the Caetani family – the family to which Boniface the Eighth belonged, and whose head is now the first of the Roman nobility – is a pretty little building, more like northern Gothic than anything within the walls of Rome. It stands upon the Appian Way, opposite the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, which the Caetani used as a stronghold.

338

A good deal of the mischief done by Robert Guiscard, from which the parts of the city lying beyond the Coliseum towards the river and St. John Lateran never recovered, is attributed to the Saracenic troops in his service. Saracen pirates are said to have once before sacked Rome. Genseric was not a heathen, but he was a furious Arian, which, as far as respect to the churches of the orthodox went, was nearly the same thing. He is supposed to have carried off the seven-branched candlestick and other vessels of the Temple, which Titus had brought from Jerusalem to Rome.

339

We are told that one cause of the ferocity of the German part of the army of Charles was their anger at the ruinous condition of the imperial palace.

340

Under the influence, partly of this anti-pagan spirit, partly of his own restless vanity, partly of a passion to be doing something, Pope Sixtus the Fifth did a great deal of mischief in the way of destroying or spoiling the monuments of antiquity.

341

These campaniles are generally supposed to date from the ninth and tenth centuries. I am informed, however, by Mr. J. H. Parker, of Oxford, whose antiquarian skill is well known, that he is led to believe by an examination of their mouldings that few or none, unless it be that of San Prassede, are older than the twelfth century.

This of course applies only to the existing buildings. The type of tower may be, and indeed no doubt is, older.

Somewhat similar towers may be observed in many parts of the Italian Alps, especially in the wonderful mountain land north of Venice, where such towers are of all dates from the eleventh or twelfth down to the nineteenth century, the ancient type having in these remote valleys been adhered to because the builder had no other models before him. In the valley of Cimolais I have seen such a campanile in course of erection, precisely similar to others in the neighbouring villages some eight centuries old.

The very curious round towers of Ravenna, some four or five of which are still standing, seem to have originally had similar windows, though these have been all, or nearly all, stopped up. The Roman towers are all square.

342

The Palatine hill seems to have been then, as it is for the most part now, a waste of stupendous ruins. In the great imperial palace upon its northern and eastern sides was the residence of an official of the Eastern court in the beginning of the eighth century. In the time of Charles, some seventy years later, this palace was no longer habitable.

343

Such as we see it in the later and lesser churches of basilica form.

344

It was thus that most of the earlier Teutonic Emperors, and notably Charles and Otto, professed to have obtained the crown; although practically it was partly a matter of conquest and partly of private arrangement with the Pope. In later times, the seven Germanic princes were recognized as the legally qualified electoral body, but their appearance on the stage was a result of the confusion of the German kingdom with the Roman Empire, and in strictness they had nothing to do with the Roman crown at all. The right to bestow it could only – on principle – belong to some Roman authority, and those who felt the difficulty were driven to suppose a formal cession of their privilege by the Roman people to the seven electors. See p. 227 supra: and cf. Matthew Villani (iv. 77), 'Il popolo Romano, non da se, ma la chiesa per lui, concedette la elezione degli Imperadori a sette principi della Magna.'

345

That which Dante, Arnold of Brescia, and the rest really have in common with the modern Italian 'party of movement' is their hostility to the temporal power of the Popes.

346

See Dean Stanley's Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, Lecture II.

347

It is not without interest to observe that the council of Basel shewed signs of reciprocating imperial care by claiming those very rights over the Empire to which the Popes were accustomed to pretend.

348

The councils of Basel and Florence were not recognized from first to last by all Europe, as was the council of Constance. When the assembly of Trent met, the great religious schism had already made a general council, in the true sense of the word, impossible.

349

'E pero venendo gl'imperadori della Magna col supremo titolo, e volendo col senno e colla forza della Magna reggiere gli Italiani, non lo fanno e non lo possono fare.' – M. Villani, iv. 77.

Matthew Villani's etymology of the two great faction names of Italy is worth quoting, as a fair sample of the skill of mediævals in such matters: – 'La Italia tutta e divisa mistamente in due parti, l'una che seguita ne' fatti del mondo la santa chiesa – e questi son dinominati Guelfi; cioè, guardatori di fè. E l'altra parte seguitano lo 'mperio o fedele o enfedele che sia delle cose del mondo a santa chiesa. E chiamansi Ghibellini, quasi guida belli; cioè, guidatori di battaglie.'

350

'Nam quamvis Imperatorem et regem et dominum vestrum esse fateamini, precario tamen ille imperare videtur: nulla ei potentia est; tantum ei paretis quantum vultis, vultis autem minimum.' – Æneas Sylvius to the princes of Germany, quoted by Hippolytus a Lapide.

351

See Ægidi, Der Fürstenrath nach dem Luneviller Frieden; a book which throws more light than any other with which I am acquainted on the inner nature of the Empire.

352

The two immediately preceding Emperors, Albert II (1438-1439) and Frederick III, father of Maximilian (1439-1493), had been Hapsburgs. It is nevertheless from Maximilian that the ascendancy of that family must be dated.

353

Reichsregiment.

354

Wenzel had encouraged the leagues of the cities, and incurred thereby the hatred of the nobles.

355

The Germans, like our own ancestors, called foreign, i. e. non-Teutonic nations, Welsh. Yet apparently not all such nations, but only those which they in some way associated with the Roman Empire, the Cymry of Roman Britain, the Romanized Kelts of Gaul, the Italians, the Roumans or Wallachs of Transylvania and the Principalities. It does not appear that either the Magyars or any Slavonic people were called by any form of the name Welsh.

356

The German crown was received at Aachen, the ancient Frankish capital, where may still be seen, in the gallery of the basilica, the marble throne on which the Emperors from the days of Charles to those of Ferdinand I were crowned. It was upon this chair that Otto III had found the body of Charles seated, when he opened his tomb in A.D. 1001. After Ferdinand I, the coronation as well as the election took place at Frankfort. An account of the ceremony may be found in Goethe's Wahrheit und Dichtung. Aachen, though it remained and indeed is still a German town, lay in too remote a corner of the country to be a convenient capital, and was moreover in dangerous proximity to the West Franks, as stubborn old Germans continue to call them. As early as A.D. 1353 we find bishop Leopold of Bamberg complaining that the French had arrogated to themselves the honours of the Frankish name, and called themselves 'reges Franciæ,' instead of 'reges Franciæ occidentalis.' – Lupoldus Bebenburgensis, apud Schardium, Sylloge Tractatuum.

357

Erwählter Kaiser. See Appendix, Note C.

358

Romanorum rex (after Henry II) till the coronation at Rome.

359

But the Emperor was only one of many claimants to this kingdom; they multiplied as the prospect of regaining it died away.

360

The latter does not occur, even in English books, till comparatively recent times. English writers of the seventeenth century always call him 'The Emperor,' pure and simple, just as they invariably say 'the French king.' But the phrase 'Empereur d'Almayne' may be found in very early French writers.