attempt to draw a picture of the man himself, and to give a slight sketch of his policy and actions as far as concerns Italy. In so doing we shall endeavour, as far as possible, to draw our estimate of the man and his acts directly from comtemporary sources. It is of course impossible but that remembrances of Gibbon, Sismondi, and Milman should occasionally influence us; but we have certainly done our best to form our judgment upon the evidence of men who were spectators, and sometimes actors, in the events. Most of the chronicles of this period are to be found in the sixth volume of the great collection of Muratori. Among these, the first place in rank belongs to no less a person than Frederick himself, who gives a summary of the early events of his reign in a letter to Otto, Bishop of Freising,* ,* prefixed to that prelate's history. The second place in dignity and the first in importance is undoubtedly due to Otto himself. This episcopal historian was himself of princely, even of imperial descent; he was the son of Leopold III., Margrave of Austria, by Agnes, daughter of the Emperor Henry IV. But as this same Agnes, by her first marriage with Frederick I., Duke of Swabia, was the nrother of Duke Frederick II., the father of the Emperor Frederick, it follows that Bishop Otto was himself the uncle of the subject of his history. That history, as we have said, may be read in the sober text of -Muratori; but we have chosen rather to study it in a noble old copy dated Strassburg, 1515, ushered in with imperial diplomas from King Maximilian, and adorned with abundance of imperial eagles. Ötto first wrote a general history of the world in seven books, ending with the election of his nephew Frederick, in 1152, followed by an eighth book, of a diviner sort, containing an account of what is to happen at the end of the world. Like all chronicles of the kind, it is valueless alike for prophecy and for early history, but it becomes useful as it draws near the writer's own time. He afterwards accompanied his imperial nephew in his first Italian expedition, and wrote two books "De Gestis Friderici Primi," which fill one of the highest places in the list of mediaval writings. He, however, unluckily gets no farther than the fourth year of his hero's reign; but his work is continued, in two books more, by Radevic, a canon of his own church, down to 1160, the year in which Radevic wrote. Both these authors, of course, write from the imperial side, but both seem to write as fairly as one can expect, and they are especially valuable in quoting contemporary documents. Otto writes like a prince, Commonly Otto of Frisingen: but this we take to be simply a mistaken following of the Latin form Otto Frisingensis. The German name of the city is Freising. It has now fallen from its ancient glory, and is only a small town in the kingdom of Bavaria. admiring his nephew without worshiping him, and showing throughout the wide grasp of a statesman, and a most remarkable spirit of observation in every way. Radevic, as becomes his place, is not the rival, but he is, as far as in him lies, the careful imitator of the prelate who promoted him. Both of them were high-minded German churchmen, and we look on their testimony on the Emperor's side with far less suspicion than on that of the imperialist writer next in importance. This is Otto Morena of Lodi, an Italian lawyer, who filled some judicial office under Frederick and the two preceding kings, Lothar and Conrad. We must remember that this was just the time when the study of the Civil Law was reviving; and there can be no doubt that its study was of serious advantage to the imperial cause. Frederick, it is has been said,* came into Italy "with the sword of Germany in the one hand and the books of Justinian in the other." No doubt the jurisconsult of Lodi fully recognised in the Swabian king the true successor of Augustus and Constantine, the Cæsar of whom it was written that "quod Principi placuit, legis habet vigorem." But no doubt this conviction produced in the mind of Otto the Judge an allegiance of a far more servile kind than the Teutonic loyalty of Otto the Bishop. We can fully understand the enthusiastic affection which every citizen of Lodi would feel for his royal patron and founder; still we soon get wearied of the "sanctissimus," the "dulcissimus," the "christianissimus," and the whole string of superlatives which Otto delights to attach to every mention of the imperial name. Otto's own chronicle goes down to 1162; both as judge and as annalist he was succeeded by his son Acerbus, who is an equally firm adherent to the imperial cause, but is somewhat less profuse in his adulation, and does not scruple sometimes to pronounce censure on his master's actions. His attachment to Frederick himself never fails; but he paints in strong colours the evil deeds of the imperial lieutenants during Frederick's absence, and the little heed which the Emperor himself took to punish them. The history of Acerbus Morena ends with his own death, in 1167; the record of that event, and the character of the author, having doubtless been added by another hand. These are the chief writers on the imperial side. On the other side we have the too brief chronicle of the Milanese "Sire Raul" in the sixth volume, and the life of Pope Alexander in the collection of the Cardinal of Aragon in the third volume of Muratori. The sixth volume also contains a few smaller pieces on particular parts of the story; one of which is Buoncompagni's Narrative of the Siege of Ancona, a most interesting piece of Inst. Just. lib. i. cap. ii. § 6. § Ibid. col. 1131. Oxford Essays, 1857, p. 158. description, but to which, as it is not strictly contemporary, it strikes us that Sismondi has given more weight than it deserves as a historical document. We may remark generally, that the writers on the papal and republican side commonly speak of the Emperor with a strong feeling of respect. If we want good hearty abuse of Frederick Barbarossa, we must turn to the letters of our own St. Thomas of Canterbury and his correspondents. The cause of the difference is obvious. To the French and English partisans of Alexander, Frederick was a mere distant bugbear, a savage enemy of the Church, to be abhorred as much or more than any sultan of Paynimrie. Those who saw him nearer, even as an enemy, understood him better. Those who fought against him knew that they were contending with a noble and generous enemy, and with one who, after all, was their own acknowledged sovereign. Popes, too, always commanded, even from their own party, less reverence in Italy than any where else; therefore the sacrilegious warfare of the Ghibeline, which seemed so monstrous on this side the Alps, assumed a dye far less deep in the eyes of those among, and even of those against, whom it was actually waged. Frederick was elected king in 1152. He came to the crown by that mixture of descent and election which was so common in the early middle age, and which modern writers so constantly misunderstand. Nearly every modern state has settled down into a hereditary monarchy, and has enacted for itself a strict law of succession, because it has been found that, whatever arguments may be brought against that form of government, it has at least the great practical advantage of hindering dissension and civil wars. Those earlier times had no clear idea of strict hereditary right; but the family feeling was intensely strong, and in those days, of course, the personal character of a king was every thing. A king could not then be a mere constitutional puppet; a great man was loved, or he was feared-in either case he was obeyed; a small man, with equal legal authority, was despised, disobeyed, perhaps deposed or murdered. The ideal king needed two qualifications; he must be the descendant of former kings, and he must be himself fit for the kingly office. Hence we constantly find a king succeeded, not by the person whom we should call his next heir, but by him who was deemed the worthiest of the royal house. Thus Conrad, by his last will, recommended, not his son, but his nephew Frederick, as his fittest successor in his kingdoms; and the princes of those kingdoms confirmed his choice. Conrad's eldest son, who, according to a common practice, had been crowned in his lifetime as his successor, was dead; his second son was too young: Germany had no desire for such another minority as that of Henry IV.; Frederick was young, brave, vigorous, he united the blood of the two great contending houses; the son of a Ghibeline father and a Guelfic mother, he was the man of all others who might be expected to secure peace* at home and victory abroad. He was therefore unanimously chosen king by the Assembly at Frankfort, and received the crown of the Teutonic kingdomt at Aachen, the royal city of the Franks.‡ But besides Germany, the newly-elected monarch had at least an inchoate right to the royal crowns of Burgundy and Italy, and to the imperial diadem of Rome. Of Burgundy we need say little more than that he visited the kingdom once or twice, secured his interest there by his marriage with the Burgundian princess Beatrice, and at last, rather late in his reign, in the year 1178, found leisure for a solemn coronation at Arles.§ But our interest centres round him in his character of King of Italy and Emperor of the Romans. Otto of Freising distinctly tells us that Italian barons took a part in Frederick's election at Frankfort. We know not who these Italian barons may have been, what was their number, or how far they were at all really entitled to speak in the name of the Italian kingdom. But whoever they were, whether many or few, whether they were summoned or came of their own accord, it is clear that their presence must have tended to give at least an outward appearance of right to the new king's claims over Italy, both in his own eyes and those of others. As king-elect of Italy, his course was to hold an assembly of the Italian kingdom at Roncaglia, to receive the iron crown of the Lombard kings, and thence to advance to Rome, and there receive the golden crown of the Roman empire at the hands of the Roman Pontiff. This was the regular course for each newly-elected king; in theory he went on a peaceful errand to his capital, in practice he commonly had to fight his way at every step. Two things always strike us in these imperial progresses; no emperor ever gets to Rome and leaves it again without meeting with more or less resistance, and yet that resistance never assumes any national organised form. Nobody denies his claims, a strong party zealously asserts them; and yet no king is turned into an emperor without bloodshed. The truth is, that it was Otto Fris. ii. 2: cf. Urspergensis in anno (p. 295), who plays on the name Friedrich" Pacis Dives." † "Post primam unctionem Aquisgrani et acceptam coronam Teutonici regni." Ep. Frid. ap. Otto Fris. "In sede regni Francorum, quæ in câdem ecclesiâ a Carolo magno posita est, collocatur." Otto Fris. ii. 3. § "Anno Domini mclxxviii. iii. nonas Augusti Fridericus Primus Imperator coronatus post apud Arelatem." Vit. Alex. iii. ap. Muratori, tom. iii. p. 447. "Non sine quibusdam ex Italiâ baronibus." Otto Fris. ii. 1. an utter unreality for a German sovereign of the twelfth century to attempt to unite Italy under his sceptre, yet nobody fully understood that it was an unreality. The German king claimed only what his predecessors always had claimed; half Italy was ready to receive him with open arms; learned doctors of the civil law told him that his imperial rights were something all but eternal;-how were his eyes to be opened? Rome itself lived upon memories of the past, she fluctuated between memories of the Republic and memories of the Empire. Sometimes she set up a consul, a senator, a tribune; sometimes she welcomed the German invader as the true Augustus Cæsar. The whole atmosphere of the age seems saturated with this kind of unreality; it was not affected; people thoroughly believed in it, and therefore the unreality became real; at all events, it had most important practical results. We are half inclined to laugh when the German sovereign calls himself "Romanorum Imperator semper Augustus," when the German historian studiously adopts Roman language, talks about "Urbs" and "Orbis Romanus," and dates from the foundation of the city of Romulus. It is quite impossible to avoid laughing, even at the great Frederick, when he writes, or causes some eloquent bishop to write in his name, to tell the Saracen sultan that he is speedily coming to avenge the defeat of Crassus, and once more to restore his empire to its widest limits under Trajan.* It sounds strangest of all when the Romans themselves send, first to Conrad and then to Frederick, asking him to come and live among them, and reign over them as a constitutional emperor, the choice and the child of the Roman senate and people. This last was too much; Frederick then did find out that if he was to reign at all, it could only be as a Teutonic conqueror. The successor of Charles and Otto was not prepared to be told that he was a stranger whom Rome had taken in; and when Rome asks five thousand pounds of gold as the price of her recognition, Rome learns, in the triumphant words of Bishop Otto, that the Franks do not buy empire with any metal but steel. All this was very absurd and very unreal; that is, we at this distance of time see that it was so. But it is not very wonderful that the men of the time were less clear-sighted, that old traditions and venerable names were too strong for them. The result is, that in reading the history of the times we can fully sympathise with both sides. Our first and most natural sympathy is with the heroes of Italian freedom, the defenders of Milan, the founders See Frederick's letter to Saladin, in Rog. Hoveden, p. 370; Rad. de Dic. col. 640. The copy in Rog. Wend. (vol. ii. p. 429, ed. Coxe) leaves out the flourishes about Crassus and Marcus Antonius. † See the letter to Conrad, Otto Fris. i. 28; the embassy to Frederick, ii. 21. |