CHAP. I.

WAR OF VITERBO.

greedy ears to these republican tenets. were in deadly feud with the Scotti, the

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Still the Orsini maternal house

A.D. 1200.

of the Pope. Still were there outbursts of insurrection in the turbulent city; still outbursts of war in the no less turbulent territory; Rome was at war with her neighbours, her neighbours with each other. Ere three years of Innocent's reign had passed, Rome, in defence of Viterclano, besieged by the Viterbans, takes up arms against Viterbo.

The Romans cared not for the liberty of Viterclano, but they had old arrears of hatred against Viterbo; and once the waters troubled, their gain was sure. If the Pope was against them, Rome was against the Pope; if the Pope was on their side, Viterbo revolted from the Pope. The Tuscans moved to the aid of Viterbo; but the shrewd Pope unexpectedly on the pretext that the Viterbans had despised his commination, even his excommunication, took the part of the Romans; a victory which they obtained over superior forces under the walls of Viterbo was attributed to his intercession; many of them renounced their hostility to the Pope. A second time they marched out; they were supplied with money by the Pope's brother, Richard Count of Sora. While the Pope was celebrating mass on the holy Epiphany, they won a great victory, doubtless through the irresistible prayers of the Pope; it was reported that they brought home as trophies the great bell and the chains of one of the gates of Viterbo, which were long shown in Rome. The captive Viterbans, men of rank, were sent to Canaparia, where some of them died in misery. The most distinguished, Napoleon, Count of Campilia, Burgudio, protonotary of Viterbo, the Pope afterwards, in compassion, kept in honourable custody in his own palace. Napoleon, to the indignation of the Romans, made his escape. The Pope even mediated a peace between Rome and Viterbo.

A.D. 1201.

cetero contra summum pontificem loquerentur."-Gesta, 133.

This latter point rests on the authority of Ciacconius, who does not give his authority.- Vit. Innocent III., p. 8. The Gesta makes out clearly two battles.

Viterbo was humbled to the restoration of the brazen gates of the church of St. Peter, and set up again some brazen vessels in the porch, which she had borne away or broken in the days of Frederick Barbarossa.

The Pope had the strength to decide another quarrel by sterner measures. Two brothers, lords of Narni and Gabriano, were arraigned by Lando lord of Colmezzo and his brothers, for seizing some of their lands. The Pope commanded restitution. The lords of Narni and Gabriano pledged the lands to the Pope's turbulent adversaries in Rome, John Rainer, Peter Leoni, and John Capocio. The Pope instantly ordered the territories of Narni and Gabriano to be laid waste with fire and sword, suspended the common laws of war, sanctioned the ravaging their harvests, felling their fruit trees, destroying mills, driving away cattle. Innocent condescended or ventured to confront the popular leaders in the face of the people. He summoned a great congregation of the Romans, spoke with such commanding eloquence, that the menacing but abashed nobles were obliged to renounce the land which they had received in pawn, and to swear full obedience.t

A.D. 1202.

Another year, and now the Orsini, the kindred of the late Pope Cœlestine, and the Scotti, the kindred of Pope Innocent, are in fierce strife. The Pope had retired for the summer to Velletri. He summoned both parties, and extorted an oath to keep the peace. The senator Pandulph de Suburra seized and destroyed a stronghold of the Orsini. Not many months elapsed, a murder was committed on the person of Tebaldo, a man connected with both families, by the sons of John Oddo, the Pope's cousin. The Orsini rose; they destroyed two towers belonging to the senator of Rome. They were hardly prevented from exposing the body under the windows of the palace of the Pope's brother, under those of the Pope himself. In the next year arises new strife on an affair of disputed property. The

A.D. 1203.

Gesta, c. 134. "Adhuc eis minantibus et resistentibus coegit nobiles antedictos, ut pignoris contractu rescisso,

mandatis ipsius se per omnia parituros juramentis et fide jussionibus promiserunt."

CHAP. I.

ANARCHY IN ROME.

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Pope is insulted during a solemn ceremonial. The Pope's adversaries make over the contested land to the senate and the people of Rome. The Pope protests, threatens in vain; the senator is besieged in the Capitol. The Pope finds it expedient to leave the rebellious city, he flies to Palestrina, to Ferentino, and passes the whole winter at Anagni. There he fell dangerously ill.

Rome, impatient of his presence, grew weary of his absence. In the interval had broken out a new, a fiercer strife for a change in the constitution. It was proposed to abrogate the office of a single senator, and to elect by means of twelve middle men, a senate of fifty-six. The Pontiff returned amid universal acclamations. Yet Innocent so far yielded as to permit one of the Peter Leoni house to name the senator. He named Gregory, one of his kindred, a man well disposed to the Pope, but wanting in energy. Still the contest continued to rage, the eloquent Capocio to harangue the multitude. Above this anarchy is seen the calm and majestic Pope, who, as though weary of such petty tumults, and intent on the greater affairs of the Pontificate, the humiliation of sovereigns, the reducing kingdoms to fiefs of the holy see, might seem, having quietly acquiesced in the senate of fifty-six, deliberately to have left the turbulent nobles, on one side the Orsinis, the Peter Leonis, the Capocios, the Baroncellis; on the other, the former senator Pandulph de Suburra, his own brother Count Richard, his kindred the Scotti, to vie with each other in building and strengthening their fortress palaces, and demolishing, whenever they were strong enough, those of their adversaries. To grant the wishes of the people of Rome was the certain way to disappoint them. Ere long they began to execrate the feeble rule of the fifty-six, and implored a single senator." But throughout at least all the earlier years of his Pontificate, Innocent was content with less real power in Rome than in any other region of Christendom.

II. But on the accession of Innocent, beyond the city

"Unde populus adeo cæpit execrari, ut oportuerit Dominum Papam ad communem populi petitionem unum eis VOL. IV.

senatorem concedere." The last chapters of the Gesta are full of this wild and confused anarchy.

C

walls and the immediate territory, all which belonged to or was claimed by the Roman see was in the hands of ferocious German adventurers, at the head each of his predatory foreign troops. Markwald of Anweiler, a knight of Alsace, the Seneschal of the Emperor Henry, called himself Duke of Ravenna and was invested with the March of Ancona and all its cities. Diephold, Count of Acerra, had large territories in Apulia. Conrad of Lutzenberg, a Swabian knight, as Duke of Spoleto, possessed that city, its domain, and Assisi. The estates of the Countess Matilda were held by Germans in the name of Philip, the brother of the Emperor Henry, who had hastened to Germany to push his claims on the Empire. Some few cities had asserted their independence; the sea-coast and Salerno were occupied by Benedetto Carisomi. Of these Markwald was the most formidable; his congenial valour and cruelty had recommended him to the especial favour of Henry. He had been named by the Emperor on his deathbed Regent of Sicily.

X

Italy only awaited a deliverer from the German yoke. The annals of tyranny contain nothing more revolting than the cruelties of the Emperor Henry to his Italian subjects. While there was the profoundest sorrow in Germany at the loss of a monarch, if of severe justice, yet whose wisdom and valour were compared with Solomon and David, at his death the cry of rejoicing broke forth from Calabria to Lombardy. In asserting the Papal claims to the dominion of Romagna, and all to which the See of Rome advanced its pretensions, Innocent fell in with all the more generous aspirations of Italy, with the common sympathies of mankind. The cause of the Guelfs (these names are now

CHAP. I.

CONRAD OF LUTZENBERG.

Markwald.

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growing into common use)-was more than that of the Church, it was the cause of freedom and humanity. The adherents of the Ghibellines, at least the open adherents (for in most cities there was a secret if small Ghibelline faction) were only the lords of the German fortresses, the cities they occupied, and a few of the republics which dreaded the hostility of their neighbours more than a foreign yoke, Pisa, Cremona, Pavia, Genoa. The hour of deliverance, if not of revenge, was come. Innocent summoned Markwald to surrender the territories of the Church. Markwald was conscious of his danger, and endeavoured to lure the Pontiff into an alliance. He offered to make him greater than Pope had ever been since the days of Constantine. But Innocent knew his strength in the universal, irresistible, indelible hatred of the foreign, the German, the barbarian yoke: he rejected the treacherous overtures." City after city, Ancona, Fermo, Osimo, Fano, Sinigaglia, Pesaro, Iesi, dashed down the German banner; Camerina and Ascoli alone remained faithful to Markwald. Markwald revenged himself by sallying from the gates of Ravenna, ravaging the whole region, burning, plundering, destroying homesteads and harvests, castles and churches. Innocent opened the Papal treasures, borrowed large sums of money, raised an army; hurled an excommunication against the rebellious vassal of the Church, in which he absolved all who had sworn allegiance to Markwald from their oaths. Markwald withdrew into the south of Italy.

a

Conrad of Lutzenberg, Duke of Spoleto, beheld the fall of Markwald with consternation; he made the conrad of humblest offers of subjection, the most liberal Lutzenberg. offers of tribute. But Innocent knew that any compromise