Absolute Monarchs (19 page)

Now about thirty-two, Frederick seemed to his German contemporaries the very nonpareil of Teutonic chivalry. Tall and broad-shouldered, attractive rather than handsome, he had eyes that twinkled so brightly under his thick mop of reddish brown hair that, according to one chronicler, he always seemed on the point of laughter. But beneath that easygoing exterior there lurked a will of steel, an utter dedication to a single objective. He never forgot that he was the successor of Charlemagne and Otto the Great, and he made no secret of his determination to restore the empire to its former glory.

Frederick responded to the pope at once, proposing a treaty by which to regularize their future relations, and the resulting agreement was duly signed at Constance. By its terms Frederick promised to subject the Romans to papal control, while Eugenius undertook to crown him in Rome at his convenience—but once again the ceremony never took place as planned. This time it was Eugenius who died, in July 1153 at Tivoli. Though never a great pope, he had revealed a firmness of character which few had suspected at the time of his election. Like so many of his predecessors, he had been forced to spend money freely to buy support among the Romans, yet he had always remained personally incorruptible; his gentleness and unassuming ways had earned him love and respect of a kind that cannot be bought for gold. Till the day of his death he continued to wear, under his pontifical robes, the coarse white habit of a Cistercian monk. His successor, the immensely aged Anastasius IV, survived his election by only eighteen months and was followed by a man who was to prove to Frederick a far more formidable antagonist: the Englishman Nicholas Breakspear, who took the title of Hadrian IV.

When he was consecrated on December 4, 1154, Hadrian was about fifty-five. He had grown up in St. Albans but, having for some reason been refused admission into the local monastery, while still little more than a boy had taken himself off to France. There he had joined the canons regular of St. Rufus in Avignon, of whose house he eventually became abbot, gaining a reputation as an unremittingly strict disciplinarian. Back in Rome, thanks to his eloquence and his ability—and, perhaps, to his outstanding good looks—he had been spotted by Pope Eugenius. Fortunately for him, the pope was a convinced Anglophile; he once told John of Salisbury that he found the English admirably fitted to perform any task they turned their hand to, and were thus to be preferred to all other races—except, he added, when frivolity got the better of them. Frivolity, however, does not seem to have been one of Nicholas’s failings. In 1152 he had been sent as papal legate to Norway, there to reorganize and reform the Church throughout Scandinavia. Two years later he had returned, his mission accomplished with such distinction that, on Anastasius’s death the following December, the energetic, forceful Englishman was unanimously elected to succeed him.

There could have been no wiser choice, for energy and force were desperately needed. At the time of Hadrian’s accession Frederick Barbarossa had already crossed the Alps on his first Italian campaign. On his arrival in Rome he would be sure to demand his imperial coronation; but even if he were to receive it, there was little possibility that the pope would ever be able to trust him as an ally. Indeed, with his known absolutist views, Frederick was unlikely to prove anything but a constant anxiety to the Holy See. Still more alarming was the situation in Rome itself, where Arnold of Brescia was now, to all intents and purposes, master of the city. Pope Eugenius, an ascetic who may perhaps have harbored some secret sympathy for Arnold, had allowed him to return; Pope Anastasius had turned a deaf ear to his thunderings. But Pope Hadrian was a man of a very different stamp. When, on his accession, he found himself confined by Arnold’s supporters to St. Peter’s and the Leonine City, he had at first merely ordered the agitator to leave Rome; but when, predictably, Arnold had taken no notice and had indeed allowed his followers to attack the venerable Cardinal Guido of Santa Pudenziana as he was walking down the Via Sacra on his way to the Vatican, the pope played his trump card. Early in 1155, for the first time in the history of Christendom, the entire city of Rome was laid under an interdict.

It was an act of breathtaking courage. A foreigner, who had been pope only a few weeks and was able to rely on little or no popular support, had dared by a single decree to close all the churches of Rome. Exceptions were made for the baptism of infants and the absolution of the dying; otherwise all sacraments and ceremonies were forbidden. No Masses could be said, no marriages solemnized; dead bodies could not even be buried in consecrated ground. In the days when religion still constituted an integral part of every man’s life, the effect of such a moral blockade was immeasurable. Besides, Easter was approaching. The prospect of the greatest feast of the Christian year passing uncelebrated was bleak enough, but without the annual influx of pilgrims, one of the principal sources of the city’s revenue, it was bleaker still. For a little while the Romans held out; but by the Wednesday of Holy Week they could bear it no longer and marched on the Capitol. The senators saw that they were beaten. Arnold and his followers were expelled; the interdict was lifted; the church bells once again pealed out their message; and on Sunday, as he had always intended to do, Pope Hadrian IV celebrated Easter at the Lateran.

Frederick Barbarossa, meanwhile, kept the feast at Pavia, where on the same day he was crowned with the traditional Iron Crown of Lombardy. His subsequent descent through Tuscany was so fast that it seemed to the Roman Curia positively threatening. Henry IV’s treatment of Gregory VII seventy years before had not been forgotten, and several of the older cardinals could still remember how in 1111 Henry V had laid hands on Pope Paschal in St. Peter’s itself. In all the recent reports now circulating about the new King of the Romans, there was nothing to suggest that he would not be fully capable of similar conduct. No wonder the Curia began to feel alarm.

Hurriedly Hadrian sent two of his cardinals north to the imperial camp. They found it at San Quirico d’Orcia near Siena and were cordially received. Then, as an earnest of his goodwill, they asked Frederick for help in laying hands on Arnold of Brescia, who had taken refuge with some local barons. Frederick readily obliged; he detested Arnold’s radical views almost as much as the pope himself and welcomed this new opportunity to show his power. Sending a body of troops to the castle, he had one of the barons seized and held as a hostage until Arnold himself was delivered. The fugitive was immediately given up to the papal authorities; and the cardinals, reassured, applied themselves to their next task: to make arrangements for the first, critical interview between pope and king.

The meeting was fixed for June 9 at Campo Grosso, near Sutri. It began auspiciously enough with Hadrian, escorted by a great company of German barons sent forward by Frederick to greet him, riding in solemn procession to the imperial camp. But now trouble began. At this point, according to custom, the king should have advanced to lead in the pope’s horse by the bridle and to hold the stirrup while its rider dismounted; he did not do so. For a moment Hadrian seemed to hesitate. Then, dismounting by himself, he walked slowly across to the throne which had been prepared for him and sat down. Now at last Frederick stepped forward, kissed the pope’s feet, and rose to receive the traditional kiss of peace in return; but this time it was Hadrian who held back. The king, he pointed out, had denied him a service which his predecessors had always rendered to the Supreme Pontiff. Until this omission was rectified, there could be no kiss of peace.

Frederick objected that it was no part of his duty to act as a papal groom; but Hadrian would not be shaken. He knew that what appeared on the surface to be a minor point of protocol concealed in reality something infinitely more important—a public act of defiance that struck at the very root of the relationship between empire and Papacy. Suddenly and surprisingly, Frederick gave in. He ordered his camp to be moved a little further south; and there, on the morning of June 11, the events of two days before were restaged. The king advanced to meet the pope, led his horse in by the bridle, and then, firmly holding the stirrup, helped him to dismount. Once again Hadrian settled himself on his throne; the kiss of peace was duly bestowed; and conversations began.

Hadrian and Frederick would never entirely trust each other, but the ensuing discussions seem to have been amicable enough. The terms agreed to at Constance were confirmed. Neither party would enter into separate negotiations with Byzantium, Sicily, or the Roman Senate. Frederick would defend all papal interests, while Hadrian in return would excommunicate all enemies of the empire who after three warnings persisted in their opposition. The two then rode on together toward Rome.

FROM THE SIDE
of the Papacy there was no longer any objection to the imperial coronation. The ceremony, however, had not been performed since the establishment of the Roman commune; how would Rome itself now greet its emperor-to-be? It was an open question, and Frederick’s recent move against Arnold of Brescia had made it more problematical still; but he and Hadrian were not kept long in suspense. While they were still some distance from the city, they were met by a deputation sent out by the Senate to greet them and to spell out the conditions on which they would be received. Their spokesman began with a bombastic and patronizing speech, suggesting that Rome alone had made the empire what it was and that the emperor would therefore do well to consider his moral obligations to the city—obligations which apparently included a sworn guarantee of its future liberty and the
ex gratia
payment of five thousand pounds of gold.

The spokesman was still in full spate when Frederick interrupted him to point out that all Rome’s ancient glory and traditions had now passed, with the empire itself, to Germany. He had come only to claim what was rightfully his. He would naturally defend Rome as necessary, but he saw no need for any formal guarantees. As for gifts of money, he would bestow them when and where he pleased. His quiet assurance took the delegates off their guard. Stammering that they must return to the capital for instructions, they took their leave. As soon as they were gone, pope and king held an urgent consultation. Hadrian, with his experience of the Senate, had no doubt that trouble was to be expected. He advised the immediate dispatch of a body of troops to occupy the Leonine City by night. Even with this precaution, he pointed out, the danger would not be entirely averted. If they wanted to avoid bloodshed, he and Frederick would have to move quickly.

The date was Friday, June 17, 1155. Such was the urgency of the situation that Hadrian decided not even to wait for the following Sunday, as he would normally have done. Instead, at dawn on Saturday, Frederick rode down from Monte Mario and entered the Leonine City, already occupied by his troops. The pope, who had arrived an hour or two previously, was awaiting him on the steps of St. Peter’s. They entered the basilica together, a throng of German knights following behind. Hadrian himself celebrated Mass; and there, over the tomb of the Apostle, he hurriedly girded the sword of St. Peter to Frederick’s side and laid the imperial crown on his head. As soon as the ceremony was done the emperor, still wearing the crown, rode back to his camp outside the walls, his huge retinue following on foot. The pope, meanwhile, took refuge in the Vatican to await developments.

It was still only nine in the morning, and the Senate was assembling on the Capitol to decide how best to prevent the coronation when the news arrived that it had already taken place. Furious to find themselves outwitted and outmaneuvered, they sprang to arms; soon one mob was pressing across the Ponte Sant’Angelo into the Leonine City while another, having crossed the river further downstream at the island, advanced northward through Trastevere. The day was growing hotter. The Germans, tired by their march through the night and the excitement of the past few hours, wanted to sleep and celebrate. Instead, they were ordered to prepare at once for battle. For the second time that day Frederick entered Rome, but he wore his coronation robes no longer. This time he had his armor on.

All afternoon and evening the fighting continued; night had fallen before the imperial troops had driven the last of the insurgents back across the bridges. Losses had been heavy on both sides. Bishop Otto of Freising, who was probably an eyewitness, reported that among the Romans almost a thousand were slain or drowned in the Tiber and another six hundred taken captive. The Senate had paid a high price for its arrogance. But the emperor too had bought his crown dearly. His victory had not even gained him entrance into the ancient city, for the sun rose the next morning to show all the Tiber bridges blocked and the gates barricaded. Neither he nor his army was prepared for a siege; the heat of the Roman summer, which for a century and a half had consistently undermined the morale of successive invading armies, was once again beginning to take its toll, with outbreaks of malaria and dysentery among his men. The only sensible course was to withdraw, and—since the Vatican was clearly no longer safe for the Papacy—to take pope and Curia with him. On June 19 he struck camp again and led his army up into the Sabine Hills. A month later he was heading back to Germany, leaving Hadrian powerless at Tivoli.

The story of the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa is almost told, but not quite. Apart from the emperor who was crowned and the pope who crowned him, there is a third character who, although he was not in Rome on that fateful day, influenced the course of events as much as either of them. No record exists to tell us exactly when or where Arnold of Brescia suffered his execution; we know only the manner in which he met his death. Condemned by a Church tribunal on charges of heresy and rebellion, he remained firm to the end and walked calmly to the scaffold without a trace of fear; and as he knelt to make his last confession, we read that the executioners themselves could not restrain their tears. They hanged him nonetheless; then they cut him down and burned the body. Finally, in order to ensure that no relics were left for veneration by the people, they threw his ashes into the Tiber. For a martyr, misguided or not, there could be no greater honor.