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MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY |
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BOOK
V.
CONRAD IV—WILLIAM—RICHARD.
CHAPTER
VI.
MANFRED. [1262—1266.
Papal Offers of the Sicilies — Refusal of Lewis
IX — Bargaining with Charles of Anjou — Clement IV Pope — Preparations
of Manfred — of Charles — Charles at Rome — Lombard Interests
Urban, more irritated than depressed by his
disappointments, strained every nerve to wrest the Sicilian kingdom from
Conradin, whose right his letter to the King of Aragon admits, as well as
from Manfred; the sole purpose of the admission had been to incriminate
Manfred, the Pope evidently hating the child-nephew as bitterly and implacably
as the accused uncle. Alexander IV had long been impatient of Henry III’s
inactivity in regard to his son’s royal
prospects; and Urban now offered Sicily, on either side of the Faro, to
his own natural sovereign, Lewis IX, for one of his sons. But the French
King’s piety, being genuine, inspired morality; and he refused to accept
the property of another; urging that, however unlawful Manfred’s title might
be, the right of Conradin was indisputable; and, could it even be deemed forfeited, which he denied, the Popes themselves
had transferred the kingdom to Prince Edmund of England. He urged
further, that the chief duty, at that time, of every Christian potentate,
was to maintain peace throughout Christendom, and devote himself to the
rescue of the Holy Land from Mohammedans and idolaters; as a step towards
which hallowed end the Latin empire of Constantinople should first be
restored.
The spiritual sovereign, instead of profiting by the
example and the admonition of his temporal brother sovereign, sought to remove
the layman’s conscientious scruples. He directed his Legate to inform the King,
that he and his Cardinals, having duly considered his right to
transfer a fief of the Holy See, were satisfied as to the
lawfulness of the transaction; and, even were
there a possibility, which there was not, of their being mistaken, and the
transfer sinful, the responsibility for that sin they took wholly
upon their own souls. The Emperor Baldwin, who was then at the French
court, and had educed cheering hopes for himself from the king’s answer, took
alarm at these vehement exhortations, which, from the acknowledged
spiritual Head of the Church, must, he feared, so influence the
devout monarch, as to divert him from the evidently
contemplated recovery of Constantinople, to a long struggle for Sicily. He wrote
to Manfred, of whom since the death of Vatazes without offspring by Anna,
he felt no distrust, to warn him of the impending danger, apparently in
the idea that thus cautioned, he might in some way avert his danger.
The letter was intercepted by Urban’s emissaries; but innocuously, for
here no danger threatened. St. Lewis was not to be lured from the path of
duty, when, as now, distinctly seen. He persisted in his refusal, even
after Urban had, through his Legate, Bartolommeo Pignatelli,
Archbishop of Cosenza (one of Manfred’s rebellious prelates,)
extorted, from Henry III and his son, the renunciation of their claim
to Sicily.
But, if from this quarter Manfred had nothing to fear,
the case was very different when the Pope, finding the King immoveable by
either sophistical casuistry or ecclesiastical
authority, revived Innocent IV’s proposals to Charles of Anjou. The
righteous monarch, of course, positively objected to his brother’s accepting
the offers, which he had refused for his own son. But Charles, now master of
his wife’s patrimony, was no longer as dependent upon his royal brother as
he had been at the time of Innocent’s overtures—although in one point of
view he might seem to be more so, not now, as then, having one liege
Lord to oppose to another-; for, taking advantage of the suspension or the
weakness of the Imperial authority, he had renounced the homage previously
done to the Emperor for Provence, in order tp be
solely a French Prince—and, in himself, he was precisely the man for
Urban’s purpose. As unscrupulous as Lewis was the reverse, he was
daring, able, and energetic; whilst his utter indifference to
all pleasures whatsoever, lawful or unlawful, intellectual or sensual,
even to the prime joy of the Middle Ages, field sports, left all his
powers of body and mind free, to be exclusively dedicated to the
gratification of his sole passion, inordinate ambition. Even his inexorable
severity in punishing malefactors, bearing the character of
strict justice, helped to give him the aspect of austere
morality, and ascetic devotion, befitting the champion and
favourite of the Pope. Yet the equally savage punishments, inflicted by
his orders for the slightest faults, might have indicated recklessness of
human suffering, as the true source of both. And this portraiture of
Charles of Anjou is taken, be it observed, not from Ghibelines, mourning over
the vanquished, but from Guelph writers, his partisans. Had the ambition
of this bold, bad man needed a spur, it would have been found in the
vanity of his wife. Her three elder sisters were Queens, respectively of
France, of England, and of Germany and the Romans—the third, Sancha,
being wife to Richard of Cornwall. The county of Provence had been settled
upon Beatrice, although the youngest, at her marriage; perhaps as
a compromise with the powerful Lewis IX, to make the principality
French, without merging in the kingdom, as it must have done, if inherited
by the eldest sister. Beatrice could not brook a title inferior to that
borne by her sisters, and a seat of inferior dignity when they met at
festivals. Rapturously welcoming Urban’s proposal, which was to raise her
to their level, she looked upon the injustice of the scheme, the
difficulties impeding its execution, and even the hard conditions attached to
success, x as dust in the balance, and was eager to hazard
her patrimonial principality for the chance of an usurped kingdom.
Charles, however, if equally eager for the prize, did
not choose to have the crown impaired upon coming into his possession; and
so earnestly did he object to the terms, to which Urban pertinaciously
adhered, that the negotiation was thereby very materially protracted. And well might
he object; for the Pope proposed, in the first place to grant the kingdom of
the Two Sicilies (the title seems to have been adopted about this time,)
to Charles, Comte d’Anjou et de Provence, and his
descendants, as a masculine fief, only, and without the Terra di
Lavoro, which, including Naples itself, was to be incorporated
with the Estates of the Church. Secondly, he required from the King
an annual tribute of 8000 ounces of gold, any delay in the payment of
which was to incur personal excommunication; a second delay bringing an
interdict upon the kingdom; he demanded, further, a distinct sum of 50,000
marks, to be paid down upon achieving the conquest; and a
white palfrey presented every third year in token of
vassalage. Thirdly, the King was to furnish the Pope,
whenever required, and at his own expense, with a corps of
300 knights, each having four horses, and the due number of armed
men, or a fully equipped fleet of correspondent force, at the Pope’s
choice. Fourthly, all Church rights and Church property were to be
restored, and such laws of Frederic’s and Manfred’s, as restricted
ecclesiastical privileges, rescinded; all differences upon such points
being referred to the Legate. Fifthly, the King of the Sicilies was
never, on pain of forfeiting his kingdom, to accept the title of Emperor,
King of Germany, or Lord of Lombardy or Tuscany, or any high office in any
of those countries, or in the dominions of the Church; nor was he, without
the express consent of the Pope, to give a daughter in marriage to anyone
holding such dignity, or such office; or to conclude any alliance
detrimental to the Pope. Sixthly, Urban required, that the Barons and the
Estates of the kingdom should swear to the observance of these conditions
by the King; and further that, in case of their transgression by him, they
would adhere to the Pope; renewing this oath every ten years. And,
finally, the whole treaty was to be null and void, should Charles not set
forth within the year, at the head of 1000 knights and 4000 horse, for the conquest of the Sicilies.
Urban proposed, on his part, to assist Charles, when
he should have accepted these conditions, in various ways. First, by the
especial weapons of the Church, excommunication of Manfred and his partisans,
and the proclamation of a Crusade against him; next, by granting Charles
for three years a tenth of all ecclesiastical revenues in
Anjou, Provence, Sicily, Apulia, and indeed throughout Italy; and
lastly, by a gross breach of trust; to wit, giving him, to defray the
expense of his aggressive war against a Christian prince, the money
subscribed, and often painfully scraped together by devout individuals,
and deposited in the Pope’s hands, for the ransom of captive
Crusaders. He offered further—incredible as it seems—to pledge himself
never, under any circumstances, to receive Manfred, Conradin, or any of
their race, into the bosom of the Church. Despite these liberal promises,
Charles demurred to conditions, that deteriorated the sovereignty offered
him; and a full year seems to have been lost to both parties, in
chaffering for another man’s dominions.
Whilst the negotiation was in progress, Urban sought
to give his unlawful and arbitrary measures a varnish of plausibility. To
this end, he formally summoned Manfred to appear before his tribunal, and
either clear himself of the crimes laid to his charge,
or submit to the pains and penalties that he had incurred. This
summons he caused to be affixed to the door of the cathedral of Orvieto, a
town appertaining to the Papal dominions, and, at the time, his own
residence; omitting—purposely, who can doubt?— to
take any steps, either by mission or by letter, for making it known to the
summoned. But Manfred’s anxiety for a reconciliation with the Holy See,
which would avert the impending storm, counteracted and foiled this
informality. Availing himself of the summons, he despatched envoys
to the Pope, requesting the appointment of time and place for his
appearance; when, upon receiving a safe conduct, he would hasten to plead
his own cause before his Holiness, assured that he could fully justify
himself. Urban, even had he not been entangled in his negotiations with
Charles, had no desire to see the King of Sicily justified. He therefore answered abruptly, that Manfred having
made himself unworthy of pardon, the excommunication could not be
revoked; and at once dismissed the envoys, without even an affectation of
paternal regret for necessary severity. Manfred, thus cut off from all hope
of peace, collected his forces and occupied the March of Ancona. Urban
complained loudly of what he called an act of unprovoked aggression; which
he proceeded to visit with condign punishment. He convoked an assembly of
Ecclesiastics and leading Guelphs, in which, after a long enumeration of
the crimes imputed to Manfred and his father, the deceased Emperor,
he solemnly deposed the whole race of Hohenstaufen, and transferred the kingdom of Sicily and Apulia to Prince Charles of France,
Comte d’Anjou et de Provence.
There seemed, at that moment, good reason to hope that
the sentence would prove nugatory, for Manfred’s power was increasing from
day to day. Lucca, taking alarm at her insulation as the only Guelph city
in Tuscany, had concluded a treaty with d’Anglone, the King’s
Lieutenant in that duchy, or marquisate, by which she agreed
to deliver up her castle and Ghibeline prisoners to him, expel all
alien Guelphs, then within her walls, and join the Ghibeline League. The
Florentine fuorusciti had now to seek safety and
the means of existence elsewhere. At the impulse of party spirit, they
assisted the Guelphs of Romagna, in subjecting that whole province to the
Pope’s authority; but erelong their destitution led them to hire
out their services to any belligerent Italian potentate, great
or small, without any regard to his political principles; as,
soon after this epoch, regular Condottieri and their
bands habitually did, throughout Italy. One of these Guelph bands has been
seen offering their arms to Conradin, for the recovery of his kingdom from
Manfred; but, whatever distrusts the despoiled
heir’s guardians might entertain of the de facto King of
Sicily, they never were betrayed into either uniting with the bitter enemy
of the nephew, as of the uncle, against the latter, or facilitating, by a
separate attack, the Pope’s usurpation of the prize for which
they contended.
About this time occurred an incident, which, for a
moment, seemed likely to revolutionize all existing interests. A new Roman
Senator was to be elected, and a determination that he should be of royal
birth, was general; but the Ghibelines were unluckily divided as to the
individual prince; some wishing again to confer the office upon
the King of Sicily, others upon his son-in-law, Don Pedro of Aragon,
and their disunion enabled the Guelphs to carry the election of Charles of
Anjou. Eagerly he accepted a post, which he had, most likely, under hand
solicited, as conceiving it one that would make him less dependent upon
the Pope in Italy; the very reason, for which Urban had so comprehensively
covenanted against his holding Italian offices. Charles sent a deputy in
all haste to Rome, to act for him until he himself should arrive. The
pontiff was angered by this contravention of the pending
negotiations; his confidence in Charles was shaken, and he
assembled the Cardinals, to deliberate upon the measures required
by this altered position. Several Princes of the Church urged his
Holiness to break off the treaty with the rapacious French prince, to which
they had always felt conscientiously repugnant. But, the majority being devoted, even more to the passions of the Pope, than to
the interests of the Papacy, the decision taken was merely, by
further negotiation, to obviate the evils apprehended from
this accession of power to the future vassal-King of Sicily.
For this purpose, Simone, Cardinal di Sta. Cecilia,
was despatched to Provence, with instructions to insist upon Charles’s
limiting his acceptance of the senatorship to
five years. Should the office be already accepted for life, he was to
exact his solemnly plighted word, under penalty of forfeiting his promised
kingdom, to lay it down when in possession of so much of the realm, as
would justify him in assuming the title of King of the Sicilies; and
to assist the Pope in recovering his sovereign authority over the
Romans. Simone was likewise to offer Charles, in Urban’s name, a
dispensation from the shackles of any oath contrary to these demands, that
he might have sworn. Charles had assuredly meant not to lose the Sicilies
for the Senatorship, but neither would he
gratuitously relinquish the advantages the latter gave him. He
endeavoured to make his compliance with the Pope’s present
demands, the price of considerable relaxation in the original
terms; and still the negotiation lingered, each party striving
to outwit the other. Urban sought to turn the delay to account, by
redoubling his epistolary efforts, to persuade Lewis IX to assist his
brother in his unjust enterprise, and the French clergy to submit quietly
to paying large contributions towards the expense of a crusade against
a Christian king, whom he chose to designate as “a Saracen, sunk in
every description of vice.”
In the end, the Cardinal abandoned the claim to the
whole of Terra di Lavoro, contenting himself, in the Pope’s name, with
Benevento and its territory; and Charles acceded to the other conditions,
which, his subsequent conduct seems to indicate, that he looked forward to
observing or breaking, as should seem convenient, when secure of his
kingdom. But many months elapsed ere this compromise was effected; Charles, probably, taking his chance, at
least till he should himself be ready to act, of Urban’s giving way. For
this he diligently laboured: Beatrice eagerly pawning her jewels, and
concurring in every possible measure for raising money, how
tyrannical and ruinous soever, throughout her principality. Thus the requisite preparations proceeded with all
practicable despatch.
Manfred, on the other hand, was striving hard to
benefit by the time, which this diplomatic haggling afforded him, and
sought by vigorous hostilities to extort peace from Urban, before the
Earl’s armament could be completed. With this view he had organized, for
the campaign of 1264, a threefold invasion of the Papal dominions,
which two armies were to enter, severally, from the eastern and the
western side of his own dominions, and a third from Tuscany, under
Giordano d’Anglone. The great vassals, who were still bound to assist in
the defence of their invaded country, refused indeed to cross the
frontier, asserting that their service was due only for the defence of the
kingdom, and unable or unwilling to understand that a diversion upon the
enemy’s territory, might be an essential part of the best system of defence.
But for this refractoriness Manfred found a remedy; through his
brother-in-law, Caserta, he borrowed from each of the nobles the sum
provided for a campaign at home, with which he hired troops to supply the
place of the vassalage.
And now the plan was put in execution. The second and
third of the invading armies, namely the western and the Tuscan, met with
some success; but their operations were designed to be subsidiary only to
those of the first, under Manfred’s favourite general, Parzivale d’Oria, wherefore a most unfortunate accident, the
consequence of this general’s kind-heartedness, foiled the whole
scheme. D’Oria, marching through the Abruzzi to attack Spoleto, had
crossed the mountains and reached the river Neri. This stream was to be
forded; it was passed, and, with the bulk of his forces, he was safe upon the
further bank, when he observed a single horseman in the middle of
the river, evidently in difficulty replete with danger.
The chivalrous General instantly rode back in person to
his assistance, when his horse stumbled and fell in the water. In
those days of heavy armour such an accident has been seen all but
irremediable; and Parzivale d’Oria,
unable to disengage himself from his fallen charger, was, like
Frederic Barbarossa, drowned ere his troops could rescue him. The
loss of their general disheartening the troops, numbers deserted; and Maneria, d’Oria’s successor,
durst not lead a reduced and dispirited army into the enemy’s country.
Charles, far from being ready to act against these
armies of his antagonist, had not, at the moment, yet
signed his treaty with the Pope; and was, in fact, hoping, that Manfred’s
success might frighten Urban into placability with regard to conditions. But the indulgences promised
to crusaders against Manfred had collected an army of adventurers of all
nations, though mostly French; and at their head, Charles’s son-in-law,
Earl Robert of Flanders, entered Italy. Towards achieving the object of
the Crusade, the conquest of Apulia and Sicily, he, indeed, did little;
but he acted vigorously against the Ghibelines in northern Italy, and
against the invaders of the Papal territories, until his success was stopped by
an incident unusual, though not unprecedented, in crusading annals. These
crusaders appear to have been chiefly mercenaries, who expected regular
pay as well as spiritual rewards; and when they found Urban unwilling, and
Earl Robert unable, to supply the requisite funds, they dispersed;
the larger part returning home dissatisfied.
An attempt to wrest Rome from Charles’s
deputy-Senator, was about this time planned by Giordano d’Anglone, and Pietro
di Vico,—one of the most powerful barons of the
Roman See, who had been Manfred’s deputy during his senatorship—in
co-operation with the Ghibelines in the city. It failed, from some defect
either in arrangement or in punctuality. Vico, at the head of his
vassals, effected his entrance, before either d’Anglone had arrived to
support him, or his friends within the walls; were ready to receive him.
Finding himself, therefore, with a mere handful amidst the hostile
faction, he was glad to make his way safely out again.
Notwithstanding these mischances, Manfred’s success
was still sufficient to alarm the Pope, whose hopes the disappearance of
the crusading army had cruelly disappointed. He addressed vehement complaints
to the Earl of Anjou and Provence, relative to the expense of
the war, and his own embarrassments, pecuniary and
political; declaring that, did the future King not arrive at the
head of an army before Michaelmas, he must adopt a different course.
In addition to other annoyances, Urban was under personal apprehensions.
He dreaded, if besieged at Orvieto, to be betrayed by the Orvietans into Manfred’s hands; and departed in haste
for Perugia, which he deemed a safer residence. Upon the road, he was
taken ill, and, upon the 2d of October, 1264, the
day after his arrival at Perugia, Urban IV died. A comet had been visible
from July till September, “with fear of change perplexing monarchs;” and
the opinion now generally adopted was, that it had both foreboded the
death of the Pope, and proclaimed the divine disapprobation of
his rancorous persecution of the heroic Swabian dynasty of Emperors;
a persecution so entirely objectless since the death of Conrad IV, as to
be attributable only to personal prejudice and passion. But, prior to
finally dismissing this unamiable, though talented Pope, the praise to
which he is entitled must be given him. A genuine patron and lover of
learning, Urban, disregarding the strictness of papal ceremonial, invited
philosophers to his table, making them engage in logical contests for his
instruction or amusement; and he employed Thomas Aquinas, surnamed the
Angelic Doctor, to write commentaries upon Aristotle, probably with the
view of correcting the non-Christian notions of the Heathen Sage,—whom Gregory
IX had vainly endeavoured to exclude from universities and schools—into fitness
for the study of Christians.
Those, who had beheld in the comet a herald of divine
displeasure, flattered themselves that a new Pope would adopt a more
lenient policy; and the Conclave took four months to decide who this new
Pope should be. But fear of Manfred’s revenge for the persecutions he had
undergone, appears to have been the dominant feeling, at least of the majority of Urban’s newly created Cardinals, mostly
his countrymen; whence their deliberations eventuated in the triumph of the
Guelphs and the French party. Upon the 5th of February, 1265, they elected the son—according to some, of a Toulouse lawyer,
according to others,—of a second-rate Toulouse
nobleman, named Foulcaud. The new Pope, not
being originally intended for the Church, had in his youth studied law at
Paris; where he so distinguished himself as a jurist, that Lewis IX
made him a Privy Councillor, and employed him in many weighty affairs. During
this period he had married very happily; but,
losing his wife, the passionate depth of his grief impelled him to abandon
the world for the gloomy solitude—solitude amidst a brotherhood!—of
a Carthusian monastery. This step naturally enhanced the saintly
monarch’s value for his former Councillor, who was not permitted to bury
his talent in a cell. He was successively raised to the dignities of
Bishop of Puy, Archbishop of Narbonne, and Cardinal of Sta.
Sabina; was employed by both the French King and the Pope upon many
arduous missions, and always found equal to his
task. At the moment of his election, one of these
missions had taken him to England, where he learnt his awful exaltation.
That the papacy in those times was a heavy burthen,
none could be more thoroughly aware than the Cardinal of Sta. Sabina. Fain would he have declined it; not in the affected
humility of the established Nolo episcopari, but honestly shrinking from the
arduous duties, the heavy responsibility, weighing upon the spiritual Head
of Christendom. And, though he did accept the fearfully lofty office, with
all those duties and responsibilities, his regretful anxiety in so doing, is
apparent in a letter, written by him soon afterwards to one of his
nephews, part of which may not inappropriately be here inserted. The new
Pope says: “Whilst others are rejoicing at my elevation, I feel the
immensity of the burthen laid upon me; and what awakens joy in others,
awakens in me only fear and anxiety. That thou mayst know how to behave
upon this occasion, I say unto thee, be yet humbler than heretofore,
for I will not suffer my family to exult in an event that so
depresses me, or to forget that the honours of this world are
transient as morning dew. Come not to me, neither thou nor any of my
relations, without my express command; for he, who should, would find
himself disappointed, and return home crest-fallen.
Seek not for thy sister a husband above her station; only if she marries
the son of an ordinary knight, will I endow her with a portion of 300
marks; if ye aspire higher, ye get no penny for her from me. Ye must
live and act as if I were still a poor priest. Thou must solicit for none;
from none accept money for thy good word; for to do otherwise would but
shame thee and thy favoured petitioner.”
The newly elected Pope did not at once assume, as
might be expected, the insignia of his exalted office, and journey towards
Rome, with the dignity beseeming the Head of the Church—though not
triumphantly, like Alexander III and Innocent IV, men of another
temper— acting, from the first, in that sacred character. But he
is said to have entertained apprehensions, according to some writers,
of so general an indisposition to the Guelph cause, according to others of
emissaries of Manfred’s, as would render such a papal progress dangerous.
Such truculent animosity he was not disposed to encounter; and, far
from setting forth as Pope, exchanged even his cardinal’s hat for the
monk’s cowl: in this lowly but still ecclesiastical garb, he travelled,
until safely housed at Perugia, which he, like Urban, preferred as a
residence, for the moment, at least, to Rome.
There he was consecrated; and, as Clement IV, assumed
the dignity and the responsibility of a successor of St. Peter; and,
simultaneously, this practical teacher of Christian humility, adopted the
ambition and the enmities of Innocent IV, Alexander IV, and Urban IV.
Neglecting the Holy Land, where one after another of the few remaining
possessions of the Christians was daily falling into the hands of the
Mohammedans or of Idolaters, regardless of Mongol hordes that still
threatened Hungary, still harassed Poland, whilst domineering over Russia,
he devoted his time and thoughts to the destruction of Manfred. In order to promote Charles of Anjou’s unjust
enterprise, he enjoined his Legates everywhere rigorously to exact the
tenth of all ecclesiastical incomes, for defraying the expense of a new
crusade against Manfred. In France the demand was now promptly
complied with; in other countries it was resisted; and in
Scotland, King Alexander III, with the concurrence of his
clergy, excluded the Legate sent to inforce the
exaction, from his kingdom.
That long projected expedition was now really begun.
In February, 1265, whilst Clement was upon his road
to Italy, Charles at length agreed with Cardinal Simone respecting
the terms—in other words submitted to the conditions—upon which the Pope
would invest him with the two Sicilies. Pending the negotiation he had,
by papal grants, loans, and his wife’s exertions and
sacrifices, raised a sum of money sufficient for the most urgent
necessities of his armament. He had likewise collected troops. By the
promise of fiefs in the fair South, he had lured many of his own, as of
Beatrice’s vassals, to support him in his enterprise. She had induced some
nobles to declare themselves her knights, and, in that character,
undertake the adventure of winning her a queenly crown. And, again, the
prospect of easily earning spiritual indulgences, had drawn together a
considerable body of crusaders. But still Charles deemed his numbers
insufficient; and, his bargain sealed, he repaired to the French court
to try the power of a brother’s prayer^, in addition to a
Pope’s remonstrances—aided, it is averred, by liberal bribes to the
whole court—upon the mind of Lewis IX. And influence they had; he still
refused to assist in, or sanction, the attempt upon Conradin’s heritage;
but he did not prevent the acceptance of his brother’s offers, by his
knights or nobles. Charles thus obtained very important accession of
force. According to some historians, Lewis, anxious to occupy so
dangerously ambitious a prince out of France, even supplied him with the
money he still wanted.
But still the Earl of Anjou and Provence did not feel
himself strong enough to defeat and break through the Ghibelines of
northern Italy, so as to reach Rome by the time Urban had appointed;
whilst he was deeply impressed with the urgent need of his yet earlier
presence there, both to secure, as Senator, the fidelity of the ever-mutable
Romans, and to counteract Manfred’s unremitting efforts to
achieve his reconciliation with the Pope. He resolved therefore to
proceed thither by sea, with only an escort of about 1000 knights, leaving
the army—which is variously estimated at from 5000 horse and 25,000 foot, to
40,000 and even 60,000 men—to cross the Alps under the command of
Earl Robert of Flanders, with Gilles le Brun, Constable of France, for his
Counsellor; Guy de Montfort, Earl Simon’s grandson, joining them soon
afterwards, obtained the separate command of the cavalry. He himself,
quitting Paris upon, the 5th of April, hastened with his
thousand knights to Marseilles, which city, as also Arles,
previously republics, vassals of the Empire, he had reduced to
the condition of his subjects and there his fleet awaited him.
At Marseilles he found various pieces of undesirable
intelligence. One, that an officer, whom, as his harbinger, he had sent
with a very small troop to Rome, having imprudently attacked the
Ghibelines there, had been defeated, taken, and sent prisoner to Apulia.
Another, that Manfred was actively preparing for defence; raising
troops, obstructing the mouth of the Tiber, and, in Tuscany, whither
he had lately gone, winning “golden opinions from all sorts of people,”
winning even the Guelphs to his side, by the justice tempered with mercy
of his government. The last and worst, was that the united Sicilian and
Pisan fleets, amounting to eighty sail, were at
sea, for the purpose of intercepting his passage, should he attempt the
voyage thence to the mouth of the Tiber. For his defence
against these eighty vessels he had only twenty;
and all his friends and counsellors dissuaded him from incurring so great
a risk as the sea voyage. But Charles knew that, whilst a rapid land
journey was impossible, delay was pregnant with certain evils, far
outweighing the uncertain danger of inability to elude an enemy upon the broad
bosom of the Mediterranean.
He embarked with a fair wind; by steering a very
eccentric course, eluded, as he had hoped to do, the combined fleets, and
flattered himself he had escaped all the perils with which he had been
threatened; when the prospect, was suddenly overshadowed; a storm drove
him from the projected track, dispersing his squadron, and
so shattering his own ship, that she was compelled to seek temporary
shelter with only two others, in Porto Pisano. Intelligence of his exposed
situation was quickly conveyed to Pisa, where Conte Guido Novello, who
appears to have succeeded to the Conte d’Anglone as Manfred’s
Lieutenant in Tuscany, was then stationed; and he, with his
Germans, was hastening to capture his sovereign’s worst enemy, when
one of the untoward accidents, often baffling projects apparently certain to
succeed, prevented his thus ending the war at a blow. The Pisans,
selfishness overpowering their loyalty, closed their gates against
his egress, demanding, as the price of opening them,
various privileges and prerogatives, which he could hardly have authority
to grant. At all events, the time lost in the discussion enabled Charles
to put to sea again. Thus the ever Ghibeline Pisa
caused the destruction of the monarchs to whom she was faithfully
attached. She had ample cause to repent of her narrow policy, having
sunk, with the decline of the Ghibelines, when, by the downfall of the
Swabian Emperors, deprived of Imperial support, into insignificance, the
Guelph Florence rising upon her ruins. But to Manfred, this future
retribution for the disastrous results of Pisa’s bargain driving was not
to afford even prospective atonement.
Far within the time prefixed by Urban, as early as the
21st of May, Charles of Anjou was in sight of Rome; and the Eternal City
being then Guelph, he was met by nearly the whole population, male and
female, and escorted in procession to the Capitol. There, with all
imaginable rites and ceremonies that could enhance the dignity of
the office, he was installed in his senatorship.
The Pope, having no confidence in the Guelphism of the Romans, nor perhaps much in the honour of the vassal-King
selected by Popes, did not meet him; but charged a deputation of
Cardinals with the final arrangement of every preliminary to his investure with the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and
consequent coronation. Charles’s actual presence at Rome, in possession of
senatorial authority and hourly expecting his army, procured him some
modification of the terms upon which he was to receive the grant.
Clement agreed to the crown’s continuing to be heritable in
the female as well as the male line, and, should Charles leave no
children, by one of his brothers; but by no more distant relation, and
amongst Charles’s own descendants, he limited the right of collateral
succession to the fourth degree of consanguinity. But on the other hand the stipulations concerning the money payments, on
which point he most distrusted his future vassal, were made
more stringent, since, if excommunication and interdict failed to
produce the desired effect within six months, the kingdom was to be ipso
facto, forfeited. Charles was likewise restrained from making
treaties with Mohammedans, heretics, or any enemies of the Church.
This treaty was concluded in the first week of
Charles’s sojourn in Rome, but months elapsed before it was ratified by
the Pope, who saw much to displease him in the Earl’s conduct. He was
dissatisfied at his being unaccompanied by an army, and insufficiently provided with money—which looks not as if Lewis had, from
any motive, good or bad, supplied him. He was irritated by the cool
insolence displayed, prior to the arrival of Charles himself, by
his deputy Senator, in demanding, not requesting, pecuniary supplies
from the papal exchequer, found empty by Clement, and not yet replenished; and
sorely was he offended at the presumption that impelled Charles,
notwithstanding the opposition of the proper officers, to take up his
quarters in the Lateran. The Sovereign Pontiff is said at this
time to have repeatedly expressed a wish, that the Earl had declined
an enterprise, evidently beyond his means; but he would not break with
him, though he would neither see him, nor by ratifying the treaty, commit
himself-
Whilst Charles was waiting at Rome for his troops and his
investiture, Manfred, however mortified at the twofold escape of his
enemy, was active as ever in preparing for his reception. He would not
besiege him in Rome, lest the consequent inconveniences to the inhabitants
should wholly alienate the Romans; but he strove by repeated inroads
and alarms to provoke him to an action, or at least, to a skirmish in the
field. Charles was too wary to incur the smallest useless risk, or to
fight without either necessity or advantage. Disappointed in this,
somewhat idle hope, Manfred now contented himself with guarding the
mountain passes between his dominions and the Pope’s; arranging similar
measures in regard to the Alps, with trusty
friends in Northern Italy; and striving, by amicable negotiations and
great liberality, to gain new allies throughout the peninsula. Hence, a
glance at the state of Lombardy, at this time, must precede the
march of the Provençal army.
At the Eastern extremity, Venice, though interfering
but little with Italian politics, had generally favoured the Guelphs.
Latterly, her attention had been nearly absorbed by her rivalry with
Genoa, in the Levant, and by her struggles both to preserve her
acquisitions made in the fourth Crusade, and, if not to retain all the
privileges enjoyed during the Latin eastern partnership
sovereignty, at least to participate in those granted to Genoa. The
principal part taken by Venice in the conquest of Constantinople, her
consequent intimate alliance with its Latin Emperors, her continued
possession of so many Greek territories, and even the title still borne by
the Doge of Signore of Three Eighths of the
Eastern Empire,( naturally indisposed the Greek
Emperor Michael, towards this powerful republic. But a short experience
convinced him, that the competition of two or more commercial
states, even should one of them be hostilely disposed
towards himself, would be preferable to the monopoly of his subjects’
trade, enjoyed even by a friend. With respect to trade, therefore, he, in
1265, placed Venice and Pisa upon a level with Genoa, allowed them
factories in Constantinople, and recognised the right of Venice to
her possessions in the Morea and the islands, subject of course to
his own sovereignty. Naturally, such an arrangement did not interrupt the
incessant affrays between the Venetian and Genoese fleets; and this
continuous warfare with the Guelph Genoa, gradually alienating Venice
from that faction, she willingly concluded a treaty with Manfred, by
which she engaged never to grant his enemies a passage; upon condition
that Sicilian ships should never bring Sicilian produce, except to Venice,
beyond a line upon the Adriatic, marked by Ancona on one shore, and
Zara on the other; nor foreign produce even to Venice, without paying
heavy duties.
Genoa, though her professed Guelphism sufficed to make Venice Ghibeline, had, since the death of Innocent IV,
scarcely concerned herself with Italian politics. What attention the
citizens could spare, from strife with Venice and their own mercantile
affairs, was engrossed by civil, or rather civic, broils. In 1257, Boccanegro, a noble, had, by courting the lower
orders, obtained the post of Capitano del Vopolo for
ten years, hampered, indeed, by association with a sort of Council, of
thirty-two Anziani, selected from the different traders. But he speedily
shook off their control, possessing himself of such absolute
power, that he tyrannized over nobles, consuls, and podestas, laughed
at the decrees of the Great Council, arbitrarily disposed of offices,
dictated verdicts to the legal tribunals, and contracted alliances by his
private authority. At length the hatred, which the higher classes had long
borne him, was shared by the lower, and, in 1262, the resentment he had
provoked, proved fatal to Boccanegro. But upon
his fall the feuds and broils, that his despotism had coerced into
quiescence, broke out afresh. The lowering of the urban fortresses of
nobles and wealthy merchants, which had been one of his beneficial if
despotic acts could not save the city from renewed distraction;
the Grimaldi, on one side, contending against the Fieschi, d’Orias, and Spinolas, on the
other, until a Spinola became Capitano del Popolo, with power similar to
Bocca-negro’s. Then followed a tyranny likewise similar to his; weariness of which, in 1265, produced a compromise between the
hostile factions, which did not prove longer lived than such compromises
usually were. Genoa, under such circumstances, though no friend, could
hardly be called an enemy, to Manfred.
Strange as it seems, after the important part played
by Milanese Guelphism in these pages, Manfred was
not without well-grounded hopes that Milan might oppose the passage
of his enemies from Provence. A variety of circumstances had, since Frederic
IPs death, concurred to alter the political bias of that ambitious, and
despotic, city. The prosperous citizens, habituating themselves more and more to wage, through hired mercenaries, the
wars in which they delighted, in 1259, engaged Marchese Palavicino, as
their Captain-General for five years. He, then Lord of Cremona, and one of
the most powerful Lombard nobles, brought, of course, a respectable body
of his own troops to the service of his employers. He was still,
despite the temporary aberration, provoked by anger at Ezzelino, innately
and intrinsically a Ghibeline, and the influence he gradually acquired in
the city, gave his opinions a weight which there was now little
or nothing to counteract. Since the fall of the Romanos had
disappointed the hopes of the Milanese refugees, they had sunk into such
helplessness, that the irritation of the triumphant Guelph party had
subsided. Manfred was no Emperor claiming sovereignty over Lombardy;
and the Popes had deeply offended Martino della Torre. Alexander IV
had refused to sanction the election of another Torre, Martino’s brother,
to the archiepiscopal see of Milan; and Urban IV had gone further; wroth
at the engagement of Palavicino, a Ghibeline, tolerant of heretics,
certainly, and a suspected Paterene, he consecrated
Otho Visconti to the see. The Visconti, whose power had long been
gradually increasing, were the only family Martino feared as rivals. One Eliprando, having in the eleventh century been
appointed Vice comes of Milan, his grandson Guido, A.D. 1142,
assumed the Italian form of that title as his patronymic, and the Archbishop was this first Visconti’s grandson. The
Pope’s preference of a Visconti, disposing Martino to desert a party so
little grateful for his support, all prosecution of heretics immediately
ceased; and this retaliation of offence was visited by excommunication.
Disputes arose, however, betwixt Martino and Palavicino. as was to be
expected; nor were they extinguished by the death of the former, in
1263. Martino was succeeded by his brother Filippo, who, strong in
such an appearance of established, hereditary sovereignty, first ventured to
assume the title of Signor Perpetuo, or Permanent Lord, of
Milan. The next year Palavicino’s term of
service expired, and Filippo dismissed him. But the installation of
Archbishop Otho, to whom all the nobles at once attached themselves,
somewhat cramping his authority, kept his resentment against the
papacy alive; and, in 1265, he seemed to be quite undetermined as to
which side he should take in the impending contest.
Palavicino, after quitting the service of Milan,
remained the independent Lord of several towns in western Lombardy, and Manfred’s
cordial friend. In the eastern portion, Martino della Scala, Lord of Verona,
had subjugated divers neighbouring towns, and seemed likely both
to succeed to the authority of Ezzelino, and, through
greater moderation, to hold it more securely and permanently. He
likewise was a firm ally of Manfred’s, and expelled
all Guelphs from his territories. Tuscany was, it will be remembered,
in some measure subject to the King of Sicily.
But the monarch had one bitter and active enemy
amongst the Italian magnates. This was Obizzo d’Este, grandson and heir of
the last Azzo, and, if hardly more ambitious, far more ardently Guelph
than his predecessor. The grandfather’s Guelphism,
being little more than envy and hatred of the Romanos, evaporated with
their power; the grandson had married another niece of Innocent
IV’s, and his was a fiery Guelph zeal, un allayed by the Romano blood
of his mother. In Rome, upon the 26th of August, Obizzo d’Este signed a
treaty with Charles of Anjou, by which he undertook for the passage of the
Provençal army through Lombardy; the Earl and Marquess further agreeing
jointly to declare war against Manfred, Palavicino, and Buoso da Doara, and pledging themselves not to
make peace separately. Obizzo prevailed upon the Marquess
of Montferrat and upon Mantua to join the alliance, as did several
cities, former members of the Lombard League. The smaller nobles and towns
followed in the wake of their mightier neighbours.
Manfred had sent troops to co-operate with Palavicino
and Doara in the defence of the mountain passes,
which they had undertaken to guard. But, in the reigning family of
Savoy, Manfred’s father-in-law and brother-in-law, Amedeo and Bonifazio,
were dead, and Conte Filippo, Amedeo’s next surviving brother, was well
pleased to see his niece, Countess Beatrice, Queen of Sicily. The
Piedmontese passes, therefore, the nearest, were open to the Provencal
army, and it was not until his troops should actually be in Italy, that Charles apprehended their encountering opposition. And this also he flattered himself that his active
negotiations, during his seemingly inactive sojourn in Rome, had now
obviated.
Palavicino, an able man, saw, not only the imminent
calamities, but apparently the long enduring evils, the sad and degrading
lot menacing the fair land of his birth and his affections, from this new
and utterly unjustifiable invasion of southern Italy by the Gauls. Zealously
he laboured to avert the destiny he anticipated. He repeatedly implored
King Lewis to prevent his brother’s lawless aggression upon an excellent
monarch and a happy country. He exhorted all Italians to forget the
rivalries and animosities, that might be termed family quarrels,
and combine against the impending danger. He told them that,
so soon as the French should once have successfully poured down, in a
devastating torrent, from the Alps, over the fair and fertile Southern
region, their greedy appetite for its fruits and wealth, their innate,
insatiable rapacity, would stimulate the invading nation to incessant
repetitions of such inroads. That, in lieu of the German
emperors, who, though not without right to the sovereignty they claimed,
were often execrated for their intervention in Italian affairs, the
French, as full of levity as they were impetuous and selfish, would force
themselves upon Italy, a greater evil, taking the place of a lesser; then
the Germans would oppose the French, and the peninsula be either destroyed,
as the theatre of their wars, or successively, if not simultaneously,
enthralled by both. But when, in the most enlightened times, did
far-sighted, political wisdom, obtain a hearing amidst the clamour of faction?
Enough to say, Palavicino’s warnings fell upon
deaf ears, and the Guelphs assisted the French invaders, as determinedly
as the Ghibelines prepared to resist them.
To meet friend and foe, those invaders were now
hastening. In June, of this same year, 1265, the Provencal troops were joined
by the French knights, whom Lewis had permitted to swell the ranks of his
rapacious brother. The army, thus completed, seems to have
numbered 40,000 men; “and only, therefore,” says a modern
Italian writer, “were they denominated an army, and not a
band of robbers.”But of these robbers, as he
calls them, some were of the highest nobility, as the Earls of Ven-dome
and Soissons, Marshal de Mirepoix, the Bishop of Auxerre, not to speak of
that first of French functionaries, the Constable; and of these many bore
crosses on their cloaks, as though they had been in arms to redeem
the Holy Sepulchre from misbelievers, not to despoil a Christian prince,
extinguishing the last hope of a helpless boy, whom their revered monarch
deemed unjustly dispossessed of his birthright.
BOOK
V.
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