CHAP. II. TEN YEARS OF CIVIL WAR. 51 They might not bear arms, but against the enemies of the faith, nor wear rich attire. Four years they were to serve, but in the garb of penitence, in the Holy Land. All their life they were to fast and pray, to receive the Eucharist only on their death-bed. war. For ten dreary years, with but short intervals of truce, Germany was abandoned to all the horrors of Ten years' civil war. The repeated protestations of Inno- A.D.1198-1208. cent, that he was not the cause of these fatal discords, betray the fact that he was accused of the guilt; and that he had to wrestle with his own conscience to acquit himself of the charge. It was a war not of decisive battles, but of marauding, desolation, havock, plunder, wasting of harvests, ravaging open and defenceless countries; war waged by Prelate against Prelate, by Prince against Prince; wild Bohemians and bandit soldiers of every race were roving through every province. Throughout the land there was no law: the highroads were impassable on account of robbers; traffic cut off, except on the great rivers from Cologne down the Rhine, from Ratisbon down the Danube; nothing was spared, nothing sacred, church or cloister. Some monasteries were utterly impoverished; some destroyed. The ferocities of war grew into brutalities; the clergy, and sacred persons, were the victims and perpetrators. The wretched nun, whose illusage has been related, was no doubt only recorded because her fate was somewhat more horrible than that of many of her sisters. The Abbot of St. Gall seized six of the principal burghers of Arbon, and cut off their feet, in revenge for one of his servants, who had suffered the like mutilation for lopping wood in their forests. Innocent seemed threatened with the deep humiliation of having provoked, inflamed, kept up this disastrous strife The inscription on the place of the murder Hic procumbo solo, sceleri quia parcere nolo, 'Thus says Walther der Vogelweide Zu Rom hört ich lügen, Zwei könige betrügen; Das gab den aller-grösten Streit, Der jemals ward in aller Zeit, Da sah man sich entzweien Die Laien blieben Sieger, Das Schwert sie legten aus der Hand, Und griffen zu der Stola Band, Sie bannten wen sie wollten, Nicht den sie bannen sollten. Zerstört war manches Göttes haus. Simrock, p. 174; Lachmann, 9; Hurter, ii. 98. CHAPTER III. Otho INNOCENT AND THE EMPEROR OTHO IV. OTHо was now undisputed Emperor; a diet at Frankfort, more numerous than had met for many years, Emperor. acknowledged him with almost unprecedented unanimity. He held great diets at Nuremberg, Brunswick, Wurtzburg, Spires. He descended the next year over the Brenner into Italy to receive the Imperial crown. Throughout Italy the Guelphic cities opened their gates to welcome the Champion of the Church, the Emperor chosen by the Pope, with universal acclamation: old enemies seemed to forget their feuds in his presence, tributary gifts were poured lavishly at his feet. The Pope and his Emperor met at Viterbo; they embraced, they wept tears of joy, in remembrance of their common trials, in transport at their common triumph. Innocent's compulsory abandonment of Otho's cause was forgotten the Pope demanded security that Otho would surrender, immediately after his coronation, the lands of the Church, now occupied by his troops. Otho almost resented the suspicion of his loyalty; and Innocent in his blind confidence abandoned his demand. Oct. 24. The coronation took place in St. Peter's church with more than usual magnificence and solemnity; magnificence which became this unwonted friendship between the temporal and spiritual powers; solemnity which was enhanced by the lofty character and imposing demeanour of Innocent. The Imperial crown was on the head of Otho; and—almost from that moment the Emperor and the Pope were implacable enemies. Otho has at once forgotten his own prodigal acknowledgment: "All I have been, all I am, all I ever shall be, after God, I owe to you and the Church." Already the evening before the a Quod hactenus fuimus, quod sumus gratantissime recognoscimus.-Regest. et quod erimus... totum vobis et Ro- Ep. 161. manæ ecclesiæ post Deum debere.... CHAP. III. ENMITY BETWEEN INNOCENT AND OTHO. 55 coronation, an ill-omened strife had arisen between the populace of Rome and the German soldiery: the Bishop of Augsburg had been mishandled by the rabble. That night broke out a fiercer fray; much blood was shed; so furious was the attack of the Romans even on the German knights, that 1100 horses are set down as the loss of Otho's army: the number of men killed does not appear. Otho withdrew in wrath from the city; he demanded redress of the Pope, which Innocent was probably less able than willing to afford. After some altercation by messengers on each side, they had one more friendly interview, the last, in the camp of Otho. The Emperor marched towards Tuscany; took possession of the cities on the frontier of the territory of the Countess Matilda, Montefiascone, Acquapendente, Radicofani. He summoned the magistrates and the learned in the law, and demanded their judgment as to the rights of the Emperor to the inheritance of the Countess Matilda. They declared that the Emperor had abandoned those rights in ignorance, that the Emperor might resume them at any time. He entered Tuscany: Sienna, San Miniato, Florence, Lucca, above all, Ghibelline Pisa, opened their gates. He conferred privileges or established ancient rights. He proceeded to the Dukedom of Spoleto, in which he invested Berthold, one of his followers. Diephold came from the south of Italy to offer his allegiance; he received as a reward the principality of Salerno. He attempted Viterbo. He had his emissaries to stir up again the imperial faction in Rome. He cut off all communication with Rome, even ecclesiastics proceeding on their business to the Pope were robbed. Vain were the most earnest appeals to his gratitude, even the most earnest expostulations, the most awful admonitions, excommunication itself. Otho had learned that, when on his own side, Papal censures, Papal interdicts might be defied with impunity. Dec. 24. every great city in Italy-Florence, After all his labours, after all his hazards, after all his sacrifices, after all his perils, even his humiliations, Innocent had raised up to himself a more formidable antagonist, a more bitter foe than even the proudest and most ambitious of the Hohenstaufen. Otho openly laid claim to the kingdom of Apulia; master of Tuscany and Romagna, at peace with the Lombard League, he seized Orvieto, Perugia. He prepared, he actually commenced a war for the subjugation of Naples. The galleys of Pisa and Genoa were at his command; Diephold and others of the old German warriors, settled in the kingdom of Apulia, entered into his alliance. A.D. 1211. His successes in the kingdom of Naples but inflamed his ambition; he would now add Sicily to his dominions, and expel the young Frederick, the last of the house of Hohenstaufen. It might seem almost in despair that Innocent at length, on Holy Thursday, uttered the solemn excommunication: he commanded the patriarchs of Grado and Aquileia, the Archbishops of Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, and all the Bishops of Italy to publish the ban. Otho treated this last act of sovereign spiritual authority with utter indifference. Every thing seemed to menace Innocent, and even the Papal power itself. In Rome insurrection seemed brooding for an outbreak; while Innocent himself was preaching on a high festival, John Capocio, one of his old adversaries, broke the respectful silence:-"Thy words are God's words, thy acts the acts of the devil!" Aug. 1209. But Otho knew not how far reached the power of Innocent and of the Church. While Italy seemed to submit to his sway, his throne in Germany was crumbMarch, 1212. ling into dust. For nearly three years, three years of unwonted peace, he had been absent from Germany. But he left in Germany an unfavourable impression of his pride, and of his insatiable thirst for wealth and power. Siegfrid Archbishop of Mentz, more grateful to the Pope than Otho, for his firm protection in his days of weakness and disaster, accepted the legatine commission, d According to some accounts it was uttered, perhaps threatened, on the oc tave of St. Martin (Nov. 18, 1210).Chronic. Ursberg. Ric. de San Germ. CHAP. III. RISING IN GERMANY. 57 and with the legatine commission, orders to publish the excommunication throughout Germany. The kindred, the friends of the Hohenstaufen, heard with joy that the Pope had been roused out of his infatuated attachment to their enemy; rumours were industriously spread abroad that Otho meditated a heavy taxation of the Empire, not excepting the lands of the monasteries; that as he had expressed himself contemptuously of the clergy, refusing them their haughty titles, he now proposed to enact sumptuary laws to limit their pomp. The archbishop was to travel but with twelve horses, the bishop with six, the abbot with three. By rapid degrees grew up a formidable confederacy, of which Innocent no doubt had instant intelligence, of which his influence was the secret moving power. Even in Italy there were some cities already in open hostility, in declared alliance with Innocent and Frederick. At Lodi Otho declared Genoa, Cremona, Ferrara, the Margrave Azzo under the ban of the Empire. At Nuremberg met the Primate and the Archbishop of Treves for once venturing Day. on a bold measure, the Archbishop of Magdeburg, the Chancellor of the Empire, the Bishop of Spires, the Bishop of Basle, the Landgrave of Thuringia, the King of Bohemia, all the other nobles attached to the house of Swabia. They inveighed against the pride of Otho, his ingratitude and hostility to the Pope; on the internal wars which again threatened the peace of Germany. The only remedy was his deposal, and the choice of another Emperor. That Emperor must be the young Frederick of Sicily, the heir of the great house, whom in evil hour they had dispossessed of the succession: to him they had sworn allegiance in his cradle, to the violation of that oath might be attributed much of the afflictions and disasters of the realm. Two brave and loyal Swabian knights, Anselm of Justingen and Henry of Niffen, were deputed and amply furnished with funds, to invite the young Frederick to resume his ancestral throne. Ascension A.D. 1211. Anselm and his companions arrived at Rome. Inno Francisc. Pepin. Murat. ix. 640. Galvan. Flamma, xi. 664. Sicard. Crem. vii. p. 813. |