Medieval communes
A History of Europe by Henri Pirenne
University Books, first published 1938 but written during the Great War
Book Seven
The Hegemony of the Papacy and of France in the Thirteenth Century
Chapter II
The Papacy, Italy, and Germany
1. Italy
p305 ...Municipal life became as preponderant in Lombardy and Tuscany as it had been in antiquity, but while its material conditions were almost unchanged, its spirit was different. The Roman municipality had enjoyed only a local autonomy, subordinated to the formidable power of the State. [This was only true after Rome had conquered the peninsula.] The Italian city of the Middle Ages -- at least in the north and the center of the peninsula -- was a republic.
p306 From the 11th century onwards the mercantile and industrial class which was in process of formation took advantage... of the conflict between the pope and the Emperor to rebel against the bishops, and to wrest from them the administration of the cities. The first Italian communes were sworn by the "patarenes" [Footnote: The name of Patarious seems to be a mere corruption of Catharus.] in the midst of the turmoil of the War of Investitures: a time of mystical exaltation. Their origin was purely revolutionary, and from the time of their birth they contracted a habit of violence that was to characterize them to the end. By force or by agreement, the commune imposed itself, in each city, on the mass of the population, and its elective consuls, like the sheriffs of the Belgian cities, exercised both the judical and the administrative power. But as the bourgeoisie developed the social contrasts in its ranks were accentuated, and parties were formed in support of various conflicting interests... The party of the grandi were composed of the urban nobility, with whom were associated a good many enriched merchants; the party of the piccoli comprised the corporations or guilds of artisans of every kind, whose numbers multiplied as prosperity increased. The absence of a princely power, above the parties and capable of moderating their quarrels, gave the conflicts between the two groups, arising from questions of taxation and the organization of municipal power, a bitterness and severity unequaled elsewhere. From the middle of the 12th century civil war became a chronic epidemic. The grandi had the best of it; the piccoli were pitilessly massacred; if they surrendered they were driven out of the city; their houses or palaces were destroyed, and while waiting for the moment when they could avenge themselves they lived on the adjacent countryside, pillaging and harassing their compatriots.
As a general thing these exiles found protection and allies in a neighboring city. For while there was permanent warfare in the heart of the bourgeoisies, the mutual relations of the cities were also generally warlike. Constituting as they did so many independent economic centers, each of them thought only of itself, doing its utmost to force the peasants and population of the surrounding countryside to furnish its food supply... Thus the clash of interests was as violent outside the city as within it. Trade and industry were developed by means of battles... Each city imagined that its prosperity depended on the ruin of its rivals...
I'm skipping again the discussion of the interplay of the cities with the Hohenstaufens which lead to another battle of Guelf and Ghibelline -- differently defined in Italy to make things even more confusing.
And this state of city vs city sounds so much like Greece and early Rome. The main difference being the absence of kings.
p308 ...From the second half of the 12th century attempts were made to render... [the municipal government] independent of civil conflicts by confiding it to a podesta. The podesta was... a temporary prince elected by the commune, and in order to guarantee his impartiality and his independence of the parties it usually chose him from an alien commune... Almost always the podestas were obliged... to rely on the support of one of the hostile factions. In certain cities they succeeded, as early as the 13th century, in possessing themselves, either by cunning or by violence... of the supreme authority, and in founding the first of those tyrannies which were to play so considerable a part during the epoch of the Renaissance. I need only mention the Scaligers of Verona and the Visconti of Milan.
The political and social ferment of the Italian cities naturally influenced their religious life. There were simultaneous outbreaks of mysticism and heresy, which provided fresh aliment for the fever that consumed them. St Francisco of Assisi was the son of a merchant, and the Order of Franciscans found its true field of action in the bourgeoisies. Moreover, there were swarms of Cathars, Brothers of the Free Spirit, and Waldenses...
It can hardly be doubted that they would have recruited the majority of their adherents among the workers engaged in production for export. As in Flanders. this trade was already highly developed in the Italy of the 13th century, and as in Flanders, it resulted in the formation of a veritable working-class proletariat. The weavers of Florence, the great cloth-producing center of Southern Europe, differed as widely as the weavers of Gand, Ypres or Douai from the usual type of urban artisan. Far from working on their own account, they were mere wage-earners, employed by the merchants. The nascent capitalism of the age subjected them to its influence, and its power, like its influence, increased in proportion as the merchants developed the export trade. By the first half of the 13th century the Florentine cloths were exported to all parts of the Orient [Near East?], and the merchants of the city were importing their wool from England. Such an active manufacture naturally presupposes a considerable degree of capitalistic development. The fortunes accumulated by the trade in merchandise were still further increased by financial transactions. In the course of the 13th century the money-changers (bankers) of Siena and Florence found their way into all parts of Western Europe, where they were known as Lombards... in England, the Low Countries, and France they advanced larger and larger sums to the cities, princes, and kings, and were employed as collectors, treasurers, and guardians of money... On the disappearance of... [the Sienese company of Bonsignori, in 1298] Florence became the chief money-market and banking center of Europe, and so remained until the 15th century... We know that it was in the form of Florentine florins, minted from 1252 onwards, and presently imitated by Venice (ducats), and then in France, that gold coins, abandoned since the Merovingian epoch, once more made their appearance in international trade, providing the instrument of exchange which had become indispensable to its progress...
p310 The social position of the Italian bankers and merchants brought them so closely into touch with the nobility that they were often confounded with it. This process took place all the more rapidly, inasmuch as the Italian nobility, instead of residing in the country... had its dwelling-houses in the city. By the end of the 12th century the nobles were already beginning to interest themselves in commercial operations, while the merchants... were often ennobled... under the influence of capital the line of demarcation between the juridical classes, which elsewhere remained so clearly drawn, in Italy grew fainter, almost to the point of disappearance, during the course of the 13th century. An aristocracy was formed for which social position was of greater importance than blood, while individual worth overcame the prejudice of birth.
Just like when the Medieval nobility was first forming.
He then goes into the Papal States which were a dead zone between Sicily in the south and these developing cities in the north.
p312 The Kingdom of Sicily, in the south of the peninsula, was another world. While it was as wealthy as Northern Italy, and while its life was feverish and exuberant, it was politically apathetic... In the 13th century (1275) it was estimated that the inhabitants numbered 1,200,000, a population greater than that of England... There is more than one point of similarity between the Frederick II [Hohenstaufen] of the 13th century and the Frederick II [the Great, Hohenzollern] of the 18th century, and this is easily explained, if we reflect that they could both do anything they liked with the people whom they governed... In the Europe of the 13th century the Kingdom of Sicily was something unique, with its expert and despotic constitution, borrowed from the Byzantine and Musulman worlds... Not until the modern era did the European States achieve so complete an administrative system...
2. Frederick II
p313 ...Lying, cruelty and perjury were his favorite weapons; in a later age they would be the favorite weapons of a Sforza or a Visconti, and to make the analogy more complete, he had their love of art and their respect for learning. He has been called the first modern man to ascend the throne, but this is not true unless we understand by a modern man "the pure despot who will stop for nothing in the search for power."
p314 This Frederick, whom the Popes were later to describe as the Beast of the Apocalypse, the servant of Satan, the prophet of the Antichrist, began his career under the auspices of Innocent III, and as an instrument of the Church...
...
p315 ...His treatment of the Church was inspired, not by a principle, but solely by his personal interests. Provided the Church did not hinder the realization of his policy he was ready to make it every concession... In reality the Popes made war against him for temporal rather than religious reasons. The quarrel... reveals itself... as a quarrel between two Italian powers...
...
p319 [After his death] As for the Kingdom of Sicily, the Pope hastened to retrieve it forever from that "generation of vipers," the Hohenstaufens. He decided to give it to France.
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