Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (36 page)

The defeat of Staufer ambitions confirmed the kingdom of Italy as confined to Lombardy and Tuscany and composed of city states that had usurped the secular powers of the bishops and earlier lay lords by the mid-thirteenth century. Other than a few notable exceptions like Genoa and Florence, civic government slipped via oligarchy into the hands of single families, in turn creating the basis for new duchies to emerge as regional centres extended dominance over surrounding lesser towns and lordships. These leading families, known as
signori
, became hereditary rulers from the 1260s. Their authority rested on jurisdictions sold or otherwise transferred to the town councils by emperors since the twelfth century, as well as counties bought or conquered from local lords.
²⁴
This process completed a fundamental shift in Italy’s relationship to the Empire. The old lords were gone, extinguishing kinship and other personal bonds between the German and Italian elites, while the prolonged conflicts with the papacy drastically reduced the emperor’s influence over Italian bishops, who were no longer fully part of the imperial church.

All this changed rather than ended northern Italy’s place in the Empire. As new men, the signori generally craved recognition and legitimacy, especially as they faced numerous local rivals. They looked to the emperor rather than the pope to provide this, because ties to the Empire remained much stronger in the north than elsewhere in Italy, while the papacy’s ‘captivity’ in Avignon after 1309 reduced its attractions as a political partner. Fourteenth-and fifteenth-century emperors were generally willing to recognize powerful signori in return for their acceptance of the new city states as imperial fiefs. Although largely absent from Italy throughout this period, emperors nonetheless remained the sole recognized fount of all honours. They retained indirect influence by rewarding cooperative signori with successive elevation
to higher titles, whilst withholding this from those who proved difficult. The larger of the new city states thereby progressed from counties to duchies by the late fifteenth century. Although Ferrara (emerging from Tuscany) and Urbino (which replaced Spoleto) were subsequently incorporated within the Papal States, Modena, Gonzaga and Milan all remained imperial fiefs alongside older jurisdictions like Genoa and the rump of Tuscany.

The new Italian princely elite differed considerably from that in Germany. Assemblies of Italian lords were already rare in the twelfth century and disappeared during the prolonged absence of the emperors after 1250. The signori had no tradition of direct personal relations with their monarch. Their emergence in a highly competitive environment further discouraged any corporate identity, while German kings saw no reason to foster anything that might threaten their ability to retain influence by playing off Italian rivalries. Finally, the desire to exclude papal interference in German royal elections encouraged a sharper demarcation of politics through new charters after the 1220s. Consequently, the Italian princes were excluded from the more formalized structures created in Germany during the fourteenth century – notably the Golden Bull, which restricted the German election to Bohemia and six German princes (see
pp. 306–7
). Italians rarely attended royal assemblies north of the Alps and Charles V refused to summon them to the Reichstag after 1548.

The significance of this is demonstrated by the anomalous position of Savoy, which assumed such significance in the process of Italian unification in the nineteenth century, yet remained the one Italian lordship formally integrated within ‘German’ imperial structures. Unlike the rest of imperial Italy, Savoy remained in the hands of an old lordly family, the Humbertines, who were originally Burgundian counts. Conrad II rewarded the Humbertiner for their help in securing Burgundy in 1032 with the gift of Alpine lordships. Further grants followed their support during the Investiture Dispute, developing Savoy as a secure anchor at the intersection of the Empire’s three main kingdoms in the western Alps. Its strategic position prompted Charles IV to incorporate it within the kingdom of Germany in 1361, where it formally remained until 1797.
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Burgundy

Burgundy was the least coherent of the Empire’s principal kingdoms and has often been viewed as an unstable frontier zone between France and Germany. It was also medieval Europe’s main north–south route, containing the Rhine, Moselle and Rhône rivers, as well as the western Alpine passes and many of the most important towns of the Carolingian era. These factors explain why Lothar I chose Burgundy together with Italy as his middle kingdom of Lotharingia in the 843 partition. It was certainly difficult to forge a common identity across this long strip of territory.
²⁶
Fragmentation was not inevitable, but the proximity of the West and East Frankish kings did offer alternative patronage for local lords, while the initial abundance of Lotharingian heirs encouraged partitions into separate royal lines that soon became extinct, frustrating possible reunifications. The result was a territory of extreme complexity, which over the longer term looks appallingly tangled, but would have appeared to contemporaries much more solid and coherent, with the seemingly endless changes of ownership and territorial size in practice carried out only at intervals of a century or more.

The most important partitions were those at Lothar’s death in 855 and that enacted in the Treaty of Mersen in 870. These definitively detached Italy and split the rest of Lotharingia into a southern kingdom (Burgundy) and northern duchy (Lotharingia, usually known under its French label ‘Lorraine’). The southern kingdom was initially based at Arles, north of the Rhône’s mouth, hence its other name as Arelat. It stretched northwards to the headwaters of the Saône and Doubs rivers. It had been settled by the Burgundians, a tribe originating on the river Oder, during the fifth century and had been incorporated into the Frankish realm in 534.
²⁷

A further partition in 888, this time east–west, definitively detached the old core area around Mâcon and Châlons west of the upper Saône. Forming a third of the original Burgundian kingdom, this had already been assigned to West Francia in 843 and now became the duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne) thanks to the permanent involvement of its ruling lords in French politics. Ducal Burgundy passed to a junior branch of the Capetians between 1002 and 1361. The remaining two-thirds also split roughly equally, but north–south. The northern part became a second, semi-regal duchy called Upper Burgundy and included the
western half of what would later be Switzerland. The southern part, comprising the former Roman
provincia Gallia Transalpina
, became Lower Burgundy, later known as the county of Provence.

Upper and Lower Burgundy acquired considerable autonomy during the conflicts of the later Carolingian era. They were reunited by 948 as a single kingdom of Burgundy, also known as the
regnum Arelatense
(Arelat) after its capital, Arles. Between 888 and 1032 the Burgundian kings came from the Rudolfinger branch of the Welfs, an extensive Carolingian lordly family. Dynastic continuity did not translate into a strong monarchy, because the succession of partitions and reunifications had reduced the Burgundian kings’ core areas to that around Lake Geneva and a few outlying castles and monasteries. Meanwhile, the counts of Provence effectively became independent to the south-west, while the lords of Maurienne established themselves in the part of the western Alps that eventually became Savoy. To the north, yet another part detached as the ‘free county’ (
Franche Comté
). German commentators like Thietmar of Merseburg regarded Burgundian kings as in thrall to their nobles.
²⁸
The Rudolfinger sought protection by placing themselves under Ottonian suzerainty in 926, and agreed 80 years later to make Henry II their direct heir.

However, the Rudolfinger outlived the Ottonians, whose line ended with Henry II’s death in 1024, and the relations of the current Burgundian king felt they had better claims to succeed him. They joined a loose coalition of Italian, Lorrainer, Swabian and Burgundian nobles in rejecting the authority of the Salian Conrad II, who succeeded Henry II as German king. Briefly, it appeared that much of old Lotharingia might be reunited by Conrad’s principal challenger, William V of Aquitaine. Throughout, however, Conrad retained solid backing in Germany, while his opponents failed to combine effectively and were defeated in swift succession between 1027 and 1032. A short winter campaign concluded with Conrad’s coronation as king of Burgundy in January 1033, a few months after the death of the last Rudolfinger.
²⁹
Conrad asserted
royal
, not dynastic, claims. He had to, because he lacked any personal connections to Burgundy, unlike Henry II, whose mother was a Burgundian princess. Although probably an expedient, Conrad’s decision to emphasize the continuity of royal claims contributed to acceptance that the Empire endured beyond the lives of its individual monarchs and even entire royal dynasties.

The bulk of the Burgundian crown lands had long since disappeared into the hands of local nobles who enjoyed considerable autonomy – indeed, this aided Conrad’s victory, because many Burgundian lords defected to him, recognizing he would be a more hands-off ruler than Odo of Champagne, who had replaced the deceased William of Aquitaine as his main local opponent.
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Nonetheless, Burgundy’s acquisition cemented the Empire as a union of three major kingdoms, adding to its premier status in Christian Europe. It also improved access to Italy, whilst constricting French influence in the same direction. Control was consolidated in 1044 by Henry III’s marriage to Agnes of Poitou, daughter of William of Aquitaine.
³¹

Burgundy had even less of a royal tradition than Italy. There was no royal election and rarely a coronation. The Burgundian nobility comprised only counts and lesser lords, all of whom remained outside the Empire’s elite, removing another reason why the emperor should visit often. In short, its internal fragmentation and politically distant character meant it could largely be left alone. Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’ renewed authority in 1156 through his marriage to Beatrix, heiress of Franche Comté, and had himself crowned king of Burgundy at Arles in 1178; all these moves were largely intended to secure Burgundy while he pursued his main interests in Italy. Otherwise, Burgundy was generally entrusted to royal governors, notably the Zähringen family, which amassed lands in what later became Baden on the Upper Rhine.

Barbarossa detached the free county again in 1169, while Savoy became an immediate imperial fief separate from Burgundy in 1310. Provence left the Empire after it was acquired by the Angevins in 1246, and Avignon (until then associated with Provence) was ceded to the papacy in 1348. France’s repeated internal problems indicate that there was nothing inevitable about its gradual encroachment into what had once been the western and southern reaches of the Burgundian kingdom. Charles IV was the last emperor to be crowned Burgundian kings, in Arles in 1365. Having backed France in its war with England (and fought at Crécy in 1346), Charles did not see French royalty as his natural enemy. He entrusted the Viennois (the northern end of old Provence) to the future Charles VI of France, who was simultaneously named imperial vicar over Arles in 1378. This area became the Dauphiné, the land traditionally given to the French king’s eldest son prior to his own succession. However, it was only through Charles VI’s own
longevity as French king after 1380 and coincidental internal problems in Germany that the Dauphiné became permanently detached from the Empire.
³²
Consequently, the old Burgundian kingdom had largely disappeared by the fifteenth century.

Lorraine

Lorraine meanwhile followed a broadly similar trajectory through the emergence of smaller, more coherent territories from an ill-defined set of loose jurisdictions. The absence of any distinct royal tradition made it more obviously a border zone between East and West Francia, whose kings were more concerned to assert prestige than delineate a clear frontier. Lorraine and the entire Lower Rhine basin remained largely distant from both the French and German kings into the high Middle Ages. The leading Lorraine lord assumed the status of prince (
princeps
) in 911 to assert parity with the East Frankish dukes, but decided against following them in accepting the Ottonians eight years later. Instead, Lorraine remained associated with the West Frankish Carolingians, becoming embroiled in their civil war after 922. This allowed the Ottonians to assert suzerainty in 925, but the episode reinforced the sense of a separate Lotharingian heritage distinguishing the Lorraine lords from their German counterparts.
³³

French kings continued to dispute possession into the eleventh century. German kings intervened repeatedly during the tenth and eleventh centuries to prevent the duke of Lorraine acting independently. Otto I partitioned the duchy into Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) halves in 959 to make it more manageable. As with Burgundy, such partitions were not irreversible and both parts were rejoined between 1033 and 1046. Henry III interpreted this as threatening his authority, not least because the ambitious duke, Gottfried the Bearded, married the Tuscan heiress Beatrix in 1054, simultaneously challenging imperial power in Italy. Henry achieved his objective of separating the two halves of Lorraine through a long, if intermittent conflict from 1044 to 1055.
³⁴

Upper Lorraine was entrusted to Salian loyalists after 1047, but the king gradually promoted the local bishops of Metz, Toul and Verdun by assigning them neighbouring counties to balance ducal power. Meanwhile, the counts of Luxembourg and Bar escaped ducal
supervision by establishing direct subordination under the emperor. Royal influence waned with the end of the Staufers in 1254, but any potential resurgence of ducal authority was checked by the complex pattern of overlapping jurisdictions developing across the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Lords throughout the Rhineland accepted lucrative fiefs providing additional rents in return for recognizing the French king as their exclusive ‘liege lord’ (
dominus ligius
). However, the attractions of remaining within the Empire encouraged them to retain their existing possessions within imperial jurisdiction. Thus, the dukes of Lorraine, archbishop of Trier, bishop of Liège, counts of Flanders, Hainault (Hennegau) and others now had two feudal overlords: the emperor for their immediate imperial fiefs, and the French king for specific fiefs outside imperial jurisdiction.