Peace of Constance – 4

Today’s installment concludes The Peace Of Constance Secures The Liberties Of The Lombard Cities,
our selection by Ernest F. Henderson.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed a selection from the great works of four thousand words. Congratulations!

Previously in The Peace Of Constance Secures The Liberties Of The Lombard Cities.

Time: 1183
Place: Constance, Germany

A year after the congress at Venice the antipope — Calixtus III had succeeded Paschal in 1168 without in any way altering the complexion of affairs — made a humble submission to Alexander at Tusculum. Therewith the schism ended and a year later, in 1179, Alexander held a great council in the Lateran, where it was decreed that a two-thirds majority in the college of cardinals was necessary to make valid the choice of a pope. There was no mention of the clergy and people of Rome, none of the right of confirmation on the part of the Emperor.

It was not to be supposed that Frederick would ever forgive that act of Henry the Lion by which the whole aspect of the war in Italy had been changed. Yet it is probable that technically Henry had committed no offence against the Empire; for no charge of desertion or “herisliz,” as refusal to do military service was called, or even of neglect of feudal duties, was ever brought against him. He probably possessed some privilege, like that bestowed on Henry Jasomirgott, rendering it optional with him to accompany the Emperor on expeditions out of Germany.

But the circumstances had been so exceptional, so much had hung in the balance at the time of Frederick’s appeal for aid, that no one can blame the Emperor for now letting Henry feel the full weight of his displeasure. Nor was an occasion lacking by which his ruin might be accomplished. For years the Saxon nobles and bishops had writhed under Henry’s oppressions and the Emperor had hitherto taken sides with his powerful cousin; he now lent a willing ear to the charges of the latter’s enemies.

The restitution to Udalrich of Halberstadt of his bishopric, a restitution that had been provided for in the treaty of Venice, gave the signal for the conflict. Henry the Lion refused to restore certain fiefs which, as Udalrich asserted, belonged to the Halberstadt Church. Archbishop Philip of Cologne and others came forward with similar claims.

Henry was repeatedly summoned to answer his accusers but did not deign to appear. On the contrary he prepared to raise up for himself allies and to besiege the castles of those who would not join him. His own lands were thereupon laid waste by his private enemies and that with the Emperor’s consent. But Halberstadt, which took part in one of these plundering expeditions, suffered a terrible vengeance at the hand of the enraged Guelf. In one destructive blaze the city, churches and all, was reduced to ashes. In the war that he was now waging Henry did not hesitate to call in even the Wends to his aid but Westphalia was soon lost to him and only in East Saxony was he able to maintain himself.

At a diet held in Wuerzburg in January, 1180, the Emperor laid the question before the princes what was to be done to one who had refused, after having been three times summoned, to come before the imperial tribunal. The answer was that he was to be deprived of all honor, to be judged in the public ban and to lose his duchy and all his benefices. Thus was final sentence passed on the chief man in Germany next to the Emperor himself.

An imperial army was now raised and several fortresses were besieged. No battle took place but the fact that Frederick had a large force at his command was sufficient to cause defection in the ranks of Henry’s allies. In 1181 the Emperor’s army marched as far as Lubeck, which city, Henry’s proudest foundation, was forced to submit. The whole region north of the Elbe followed Lubeck’s example and Henry was soon forced to confess that his cause was hopeless. He laid down his arms and was summoned to a diet at Erfurt to learn his fate. Here he fell on his knees before Frederick, who, with tears in his eyes, raised him and kissed him in token of peace.

He was made to surrender all his possessions with the exception of Brunswick and Luneburg. He was to go into exile and to bind himself by an oath not to return without the Emperor’s permission. He soon afterward passed over to Normandy, where he stayed for two years with his father-in-law, Henry II. He then passed over with the latter to England.

The years immediately following the Congress of Venice were, strange to say, the most brilliant period of Frederick’s reign. It was, after all, only his ideals that had suffered and a time of prosperity now settled down upon the nation.

With Alexander the Emperor remained on friendly terms; but the Pope in 1181 died in exile, having been forced by the faithless Romans, as Gregory VII had been a century before, to flee the holy city.

The peace with the Lombard towns was signed at Constance within the six years agreed upon, on June 23, 1183. The communal freedom for which they had fought so long was now accorded them; the Emperor gave up all right to the regalia and recognized the Lombard League. His dream of becoming a second Justinian had not been realized.

The cities received the privilege of using the woods, meadows, bridges and mills in their immediate vicinity and of raising revenues from them; the jurisdiction in ordinary, civil and criminal cases; the right of making fortifications. The Emperor was, to a certain extent, to be provided for when he chose to come to Italy; but he promised to make no long stay in any one town. The cities were to choose their own consuls, who were to be invested with their dignity by the Emperor or his representatives. The ceremony, however, was to be performed only once in five years. In important matters where more than a certain sum was at stake, appeals to the Emperor were to be allowed.

With the city of Alessandria, so long to him a thorn in the flesh, Frederick had already come to a separate agreement by consent of the league. The city was, technically, to be annihilated and then to be re-founded; it was no longer to bear the name of the Pope but that of the Emperor. Alessandria was to become Caesarea; yet none of the Inhabitants was to suffer by the change.

The treaty is extant; it provided that the people should leave the city and remain without the walls until led back by an imperial envoy. All the male inhabitants of Caesarea were then to swear fealty to the Emperor and to his son Henry VI.

The Lombard cities, from this time forward, remained true to Frederick.

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