1 Elected to Sweden in opposition to Haco VI; deposed by Margaret.
2 Having united all three kingdoms in her own person, framed formal Union of Calmar, 1397.
3 Elected king on death of Christopher, whose widow he married; said to be descended from Eric V of Denmark.
[Abridged from George"s Genealogical Tables.]
CHAPTER II. GERMANY: ITALY: SPAIN: THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES: POLAND AND RUSSIA: HUNGARY: OTTOMAN TURKS: THE GREEK EMPIRE.
I. GERMANY.
THE GREAT INTERREGNUM.--After the death of _Frederick II_. (1250), Germany and Italy, the two countries over which the imperial authority extended, were left free from its control. _Italy_ was abandoned to itself, and thus to internal division. The case of _Germany_ was a.n.a.logous. During the "great interregnum," lasting for twenty-three years, the German cities, by their industry and trade, grew strong, as did the burghers in France, and in the towns in England, in this period. But in Germany the feudal control was less relaxed. This interval was a period of anarchy and trouble. _William of Holland_ wore the t.i.tle of emperor until 1256. Then the _electors_ were bribed, and _Alfonso X. of Castile_, great-grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, and _Richard, Earl of Cornwall_, younger son of King John of England, were chosen by the several factions; but their power was nominal. The four electors on the Rhine, and the dukes and counts, divided among themselves the imperial domains. The dismemberment of the duchies of _Swabia_ and _Franconia_ (1268), and at an earlier day (1180) of _Saxony_, created a mult.i.tude of petty sovereignties.
The great va.s.sals of the empire, the kings of _Denmark_, of _Poland_, of _Hungary_, etc., broke away from its suzerainty. There was a reign of violence. The barons sallied out of their strongholds to rob merchants and travelers. The princes, and the n.o.bles in immediate relation to the empire, governed, each in his own territory, as they pleased. New means of protection were created, as the _League of the Rhine_, comprising sixty cities and the three Rhenish archbishops, and having its own a.s.semblies; and the _Hanseatic League_, which has been described (p. 303). Moreover, corporations of merchants and artisans were established in the cities. In the North, where the Crusades, and war with the _Slaves_, had thinned the population, colonies of Flemings, Hollanders, and Frisians came in to cultivate the soil. During the long-continued disturbances after the death of _Frederick II_., the desire of local independence undermined monarchy. The empire never regained the vigor of which it was robbed by the _interregnum_.
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.--_Rudolph_, Count of Hapsburg (1273-1291), was elected emperor for the reason, that, while he was a brave man, he was not powerful enough to be feared by the aristocracy. He wisely made no attempt to govern in Italy. He was supported by the Church, to which he was submissive. He devoted himself to the task of putting down disorders in Germany. Against _Ottocar II_., king of Bohemia, who now held also Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and who refused to acknowledge Rudolph, the emperor twice made war successfully. In a fierce battle at the _Marchfield_, in 1278, _Ottocar_ was slain. _Austria_, _Styria_, and _Carniola_ fell into the hands of the emperor. They were given as fiefs to Rudolph"s son _Albert_; and _Carinthia_ to Albert"s son-in-law, the _Count of Tyrol_. This was the foundation of the power of the house of Hapsburg. _Rudolph_ strove with partial success to recover the crown lands, and did what he could to put a stop to private war and to robbery. Numerous strongholds of robbers he razed to the ground. His practical abandonment of Italy, his partial restoration of order in Germany, and his service to the house of Hapsburg, are the princ.i.p.al features of Rudolph"s reign.
HENRY VII. (1308-1313): ITALY.--Adolphus of Na.s.sau (1292-1298) was hired by _Edward I_. to declare war against France. His doings in Thuringia. which he tried to buy from the Landgrave _Albert_, led the electors to dethrone him, and to choose _Albert I_. (1298-1308), _Duke of Austria_, son of Rudolph. His nephew _John_, whom he tried to keep out of his inheritance, murdered him. _Henry VII_. (1308-1313), who was Count of _Luxemburg_, the next emperor, did little more than build up his family by marrying his son _John_ to the granddaughter of King _Ottocar_.
_John_ was thus made king of Bohemia. In these times, when the emperors were weak, they were anxious to strengthen and enrich their own houses. _Henry_ went to Italy to try his fortunes beyond the Alps. He was crowned in Pavia king of Italy, and in Rome emperor (1312). But the rival parties quickly rose up against him: he was excommunicated by _Clement V_., an ally of France, and died--it was charged, by poison mixed in the sacramental cup--in 1313. He was a man of pure and n.o.ble character, but the time had pa.s.sed for Italy to be governed by a German sovereign.
CIVIL WAR: ELECTORS AT RENSE.--One party of the electors chose _Frederick of Austria_ (1314-1330), and the other _Louis of Bavaria_ (1314-1347). A terrible civil war, lasting for ten years, was the consequence. In a great battle near _Muhldorf_, the Austrians were defeated, and _Frederick_ was captured. _Louis_ had now to encounter the hostility of Pope _John XXII_. (at Avignon), who wished to give the imperial crown to _Philip the Fair_ of France. _Louis_ maintained that he received the throne, not from the popes, but from the electors. He was excommunicated by _John_, who refused to sanction the agreement of Louis and of Frederick, now set at liberty, to exercise a joint sovereignty. _Louis_ was in Italy from 1327 to 1330, where he was crowned emperor by a pope of his own creation. All efforts of Louis to make peace with _Pope_ _John_ and his successor, _Benedict XII_., were foiled by the opposition of France. The strife which had been occasioned in Germany by this interference from abroad created such disaffection among the Germans, that the electors met at _Rense_, in 1338, and declared that the elected king of the Germans received his authority from the choice of the electoral princes exclusively, and was Roman emperor even without being crowned by a pope.
DEPOSITION OF LOUIS OF BAVARIA.--The imprudence of _Louis_ in aggrandizing his family, and his a.s.sumption of an acknowledged papal right in dissolving the marriage of the heiress of Tyrol with a son of _King John of Bohemia_, turned the electors against him. In 1346 Pope _Clement VI_. declared him deposed. The electors chose in his place _Charles_, the Margrave of _Moravia_, the son of King _John of Bohemia_. _Louis_ did not give up his t.i.tle, but he died soon after.
CHARLES IV. (1347-1378).--_Charles IV_. visited Italy, and was crowned emperor (1355); but, according to a promise made to the Pope, he tarried in Rome only a part of one day. He was crowned king of Burgundy at _Arles_ (1365). In Italy "he sold what was left of the rights of the empire, sometimes to cities, sometimes to tyrants." His princ.i.p.al care was for building up his own hereditary dominion, which he so enlarged that it extended, at his death, from the Baltic almost to the Danube. He fortified and adorned _Prague_, and established there, in 1348, the first German university.
THE GOLDEN BULL.--The great service of _Charles IV_. to Germany was in the grant of the charter called the _Golden Bull_ (1356). This expressly conferred the right of electing the emperor on the SEVEN ELECTORS, who had, in fact, long exercised it. These were the archbishops of Mentz, of Trier, and of Cologne, and the four secular princes, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. The electoral states were made indivisible and inalienable, and hereditary in the male line. The electors were to be sovereign within their respective territories, and their persons were declared sacred.
THE BLACK DEATH.--Germany, like the other countries, was terribly afflicted during the reign of Charles by the destructive pestilence that swept over the most of Europe (p. 319). One effect was an outbreaking of religious fervor. At this time the movement of the "Flagellants," which started in the thirteenth century, reached its height in Germany and elsewhere. They scourged and lacerated themselves for their sins, marching in processions, and inflicting their blows to the sound of music. Another result of the plague was a savage persecution of the Jews, who were falsely suspected of poisoning wells. Many thousands of them were tortured and killed.
ANARCHY IN GERMANY.--The son of Charles IV. (1378-1400), _Wenceslaus_, or _Wenzel_, was a coa.r.s.e and cruel king. Under him the old disorders of the _Interregnum_ sprang up anew. The towns had to defend themselves against the robber barons, and formed confederacies for this purpose. Private war raged all over Germany.
ACCESSION OF SIGISMUND.--_Wenceslaus_ was deposed by the electors in 1400. But _Rupert_, the Count Palatine, his successor (1400-1410), was able to accomplish little, in consequence of the strife of parties. _Sigismund_ (1410-1437), brother of _Wenceslaus_, margrave of Brandenburg, and, in right of his wife, king of Hungary, was chosen emperor, first by a part, and then by all, of the electors. The most important events of this period were the _Council of Constance_ (1414-1418) and the war with the _Hussites_.
JOHN HUSS.--The princ.i.p.al end for which the Council of Constance was called was the healing of the schism in the Church,--in consequence of which there were three rival popes,--and the securing of ecclesiastical reforms. But at this council _John Huss_, an eminent Bohemian preacher, was tried for heresy. The doctrines of _Wickliffe_ had penetrated into _Bohemia;_ and a strong party, of which Huss was the princ.i.p.al leader, had sprung up in favor of innovations, doctrinal and practical, one of which was the giving of the cup in the sacrament to the laity. _Huss_ made a great stir by his attack upon abuses in the Church. Under a safe-conduct from _Sigismund_, he journeyed to _Constance_. There he was tried, condemned as a heretic, and burnt at the stake (1415). _Jerome of Prague_, another reformer, was dealt with in the same way by the council (1416).
HUSSITE WAR.--The indignation of the followers of _Huss_ was such that a great revolt broke out in Bohemia. The leader was a brave man, _Ziska_. The imperial troops, after the coronation of _Sigismund_ as king of Bohemia, were defeated, and driven out. The Hussite soldiers ravaged the neighboring countries. The council of _Basel_ (1431-1449) concluded a treaty with the more moderate portion of the Hussites, in which concessions were made to them. The _Taborites_, the more fanatical portion, were at length defeated and crushed.
SWITZERLAND.--Switzerland, originally a part of the kingdom of _Arles_, had been ceded, with this kingdom, to the German Empire in 1033. Within it, was established a lay and ecclesiastical feudalism. In the twelfth century the cities--_Zurich_, _Basel_, _Berne_, and _Freiburg_--began to be centers of trade, and gained munic.i.p.al privileges. The three mountain cantons--_Uri_, _Schweitz,_ and _Unterwalden_--cherished the spirit of freedom. The counts of _Hapsburg_, after the beginning of the thirteenth century, exercised a certain indefinite jurisdiction in the land. They endeavored to transform this into an actual sovereignty. Two of the cantons received charters placing them in an immediate relation to the empire. After the death of _Rudolph I_., the three cantons above named united in a league. Out of this the _Swiss Confederacy_ gradually grew up. There were struggles to cast off foreign control; but the story of _William Tell_, and other legends of the sort, are certainly fabulous. _Albert of Austria_ left to his successor in the duchy the task of subduing the rebellion. The Austrians were completely defeated at _Morgarten_, "the Marathon of Switzerland" (1315). The Swiss Confederacy was enlarged by the addition of _Lucerne_ (1332), _Zurich_ and _Glarus_ (1351), _Zug_ (1352), and of the city of _Berne_ in 1353. The battle of _Sempach_ (1386) brought another great defeat upon the Austrians. There, if we may believe an ancient song, a Swiss hero, _Arnold of Winkelried_, grasped as many of the spear-points as he could reach, as a sheaf in his arms, and devoted himself to death, opening thus a path in which his followers rushed to victory. Once more the Swiss triumphed at _Nafels_ (1388). From that time they were left to the enjoyment of their freedom.
II. ITALY.
GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES: FREEDOM IN THE CITIES.--The inveterate foes of Italy were foreign interference and domestic faction. After the death of _Frederick II_., the war of the popes against his successors lasted for seventeen years. After the defeat of _Manfred_ (1266), _Conradin_, the last of the Hohenstaufens, died on the scaffold at Naples. _Charles of Anjou_ lost Sicily through the rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers (1282); and dominion in that island, separated from Naples, pa.s.sed to the house of Aragon. The papal states, after the election of _Rudolph_ of _Hapsburg_, became a distinct sovereignty of the pontiffs. The bitter strife of the _Guelfs_ and _Ghibellines_ went on in the Italian cities. The Genoese, who were Guelfic, defeated the Pisans in 1284; and "_Pisa_, which had ruined Amalfi, was now ruined by _Genoa_." _Florence_, which was Guelfic, grew in strength. _Genoa_ and _Venice_ became rivals in the contest for the control of the Mediterranean. In _Florence_, new factions, the _Neri_ and _Bianchi_ (Blacks and Whites), appeared; the _Neri_ being violent Guelfs, and the _Bianchi_ being at first moderate Guelfs and then Ghibellines. Pope _Boniface VIII_. invited into Italy _Charles of Valois_. He was admitted to Florence (1301), and gave the supremacy there to the Guelfic side. The coming of the Emperor _Henry VII_. into Italy (1310) was marked by a temporary, but the last, revival of imperial feeling. The connection of the popes with the French houses of _Anjou_ and _Valois_ led to the "Babylonian Exile" at _Avignon_, during which Italy was comparatively free, both from imperial and papal control. During the period of the civil wars, while there was nominally a conflict between the party of the pope and the party of the emperor, the _Guelfs_ were devoted to the destruction of feudalism, and to the building-up of commerce and republican inst.i.tutions; while the _Ghibellines_, dreading anarchy, resisted the incoming of the new order of things. It was in this period that _Dante_ produced his immortal poem, which sprang out of the midst of the contest of Guelf and Ghibelline (p. 307). Dante was himself a Ghibelline and an imperialist. In the course of these conflicts, the plebeian cla.s.s, before without power, is advanced. Older families of n.o.bility die out, or are reduced in influence. New families rise to prominence and power. The burghers band together in arts or guilds; and out of these, in their corporate character, the governments of the cities are formed. "Ancients," and "priors," the heads of the "arts," supersede the consuls. The "podesta" is more and more limited to a judicial function. In some of the _Guelf_ cities, there is "a gonfalonier of justice," to curb the n.o.bility. In _Florence_, there were also twenty subordinate _gonfaloniers_.
The final triumph of Guelfs and of republicanism in Florence was in 1253. The body of the citizens established their sovereignty. When, in 1266, citizenship was confined to those who were enrolled in the guilds, the n.o.bles, or _Grandi_, were wholly excluded from the government. This led them to drop their t.i.tles and dignities in order to enroll themselves in these industrial societies. The feuds of factions, especially of the "Whites" and "Blacks," sprang up next. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, strife arose between the "Lesser Arts," or craftsmen whose trades were subordinate to the "Greater Arts," and these last. The mob in Florence drove the "Signory," or chief magistrates, out of the public palace. This was the "Tumult of the Ciompi,"--_Ciompi_ signifying wool-carders, who gave their name to the whole faction. Afterwards, of their own accord, they gave back the government to the priors of the Greater Arts. The effect of these disturbances was to reduce all cla.s.ses to a level. The way was open for families, like the _Albizzi_ and _Medici_, to build up a virtual control by wealth and personal qualities.
THE GENERALS IN THE CITIES.--In the cities, there were "captains of the people," who carried on war,--leaders of the Guelfs or Ghibellines, as either might be uppermost. They were persons who were skilled in arms: these were often n.o.bles who had been merged in the body of citizens. In this way, there arose in the cities of Northern Italy ruling houses or dynasties; as the _Della Scala_ in Verona, the _Polenta_ at Ravenna, etc. In _Tuscany_, where the commercial power of _Florence_ was so great, the communes as yet kept themselves free from hereditary rulers; yet, from time to time, their liberties were exposed to attack from successful generals.
THE TYRANTS.--At the beginning of the fourteenth century, as the fury of the civil wars declined, the cities were left more and more under the rule of masters called "tyrants." Tyranny, as of old, was a term for absolute authority, however it might be wielded. The visits of the emperors _Henry VII_., and _Louis IV_. of Bavaria, and of _John_ of Bohemia, son of Henry VII., had no important political effect, except to bring increased power to the Ghibelline despots. Thus, after the interference of Louis IV. (1327), the _Visconti_ established their power in Milan. But the changes in Italy after this epoch gave to the Ghibellines no permanent advantage over their adversaries. The leader of the Guelfs for a long time was _Robert_, king of Naples (1309-1343).
THE CLa.s.sES OF DESPOTS.--The methods by which the Emperor _Frederic II_. governed in Italy, and which he had partly learned from the Saracens in Sicily, furnished an example which the Italian despots followed later. He was imitated in his system of taxation, in his creation of monopolies, in the luxury and magnificence of his court, and in his patronage of polite culture. His vicar in the North of Italy, _Ezzelino da Romano_ (1194-1259), who was captain, in the Ghibelline interest, in _Verona_, _Padua_, and other cities, was guilty of ma.s.sacres and all sorts of cruelties, the story of which exercised a horrible fascination over others who came after. At last he was "hunted down" by Venice and a league of cities, and captured; but he refused to take food, tore his bandages from his wounds, and died under the ban of the Church. The despots of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been divided by _Mr. Symonds_ into six cla.s.ses. The _first_ cla.s.s had a certain hereditary right from the previous exercise of lordship, as the house of _Este_ in Ferrara. The _second_ cla.s.s, as the _Visconti_ family in Milan, had been vicars of the empire. The _third_ cla.s.s were captains, or podestas, chosen by the burghers to their office, but abusing it to enslave the cities. Most of the tyrants of Lombardy got their power in this way. The _fourth_ cla.s.s is made up of the _Condottieri_, like _Francesco Sforza_ at Milan. The _fifth_ cla.s.s includes the nephews or sons of popes, and is of later origin, like the _Borgia_ of Romagna. Their governments had less stability. The _sixth_ cla.s.s is that of eminent citizens, like the _Medici_ at Florence and the _Bentivogli_ of Bologna. These acquired undue authority by wealth, sometimes by personal qualities and n.o.ble descent. Among those who are called "despots" were individuals of worth, moderation, and culture. The records of many of them are filled with tragic scenes of violence and crime. To maintain their hated rule, they were impelled to the practice of barbarities hardly ever surpa.s.sed. (J.
A. Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. i. chap, ii.)
CONDOTTIERI.--With the end of the civil wars, there appear "the companies of adventure," or mercenary troops. The burghers, having put down the n.o.bility and achieved their independence, lay aside their arms. They are busy in manufactures and trade. The despots and the republics prefer to hire foreign adventurers, the "free companies," who were a curse to Italy. Their occupation, which was a profitable one, was taken up by natives. These were the _condottieri_. Their leaders introduced cavalry and more skillful methods of fighting. But the battles were bloodless games of strategy, and military energy declined. At the same time intrigue and state-craft were the instruments of political aggrandizement. One of these new leaders was _Sforza Attendolo_, whose son became Duke of Milan.
FIVE STATES IN ITALY.--In the middle of the fifteenth century, we find, as the political result of the changes of the preceding century and a half, five princ.i.p.al communities in Italy. These powers are the kingdom of _Naples_, the duchy of _Milan_, the republic of _Florence_, the republic of _Venice_, and the _princ.i.p.ality of the Pope_. A brief sketch will be given of each of these states down to 1447, when _Nicholas V_. reestablished the papacy in its strength at Rome, after the exile at _Avignon_ (1305), and the ecclesiastical convulsions that followed it.
LOWER ITALY.--_Robert the Wise_ (of Anjou) (1309-1343), the successor of _Charles II_. of Naples and the champion of the Guelfs, could not extend his power over Sicily, where _Frederick_ II. (1296-1337), the son of _Peter_ of _Aragon_, reigned. Robert"s granddaughter, _Joan I._, after a career of crime and misfortune, was strangled in prison by _Charles Durazzo_, the last male descendant of the house of Anjou in Lower Italy (1382), who seized on the government. _Joan II_., the last heir of _Durazzo_ (1414-1435), first adopted _Alfonso V_. of _Aragon_, and then _Louis III_. of _Anjou_ and his brother _Rene_. _Alfonso_, who inherited the crown of _Sicily_, united both kingdoms (1435), after a war with Rene and the _Visconti_ of Milan. By this contest, Italy was divided into two parties, composed of the respective adherents of the houses of _Anjou_ and _Aragon_, The rights of _Rene_ were to revert later to the crown of France, and to serve as a ground for new wars. For twenty-three years _Alfonso_ reigned wisely and prosperously in Southern Italy. He was a patron of letters, and promoted peace among the Italian states.
THE MILANESE: SFORZA.--Another great power was growing up in the North. The greatness of the _Visconti_ family dates from _John_, Archbishop of _Milan_, who reigned there, and died in 1354. _Gian Galeazzo Visconti_ became sole master of Milan in 1385, and extended his dominion over Lombardy. He bought of the Emperor _Wenceslaus_ the ducal t.i.tle. Twenty-six cities, with their territories, were subject to him. But at _Galeazzo"s_ death, his state fell to pieces. The _condottieri_, whom he had kept under, broke loose from control; and in 1450, one of them, _Francesco Sforza_, with the help of the Venetians, seized on the supreme power, which his family continued to hold for fifty years.
VENICE.--_Venice_, in the fourteenth century, was as strong as any Italian state. Its const.i.tution was of gradual growth. The _doge_, elected by the people, divided power in 1032 with a _senate_; and in 1172 the _Grand Council_ was organized. This council by degrees absorbed the powers of government, which thus became an aristocracy. In 1297 the Senate became hereditary in a few families. In 1311 the powerful _Council of Ten_ was const.i.tuted. For a long period Venice was not ambitious of power in Italy, but was satisfied with her commerce with the East. Her contest with _Genoa_ began in 1352, and lasted for thirty years. In the war of _Chioggia_,--so called from a town twenty-five miles south of Venice,--the Venetians were defeated by _Luciano Doria_ in a sea-fight on the Adriatic. He blockaded Venice; but _Doria_, in turn, was blockaded in _Chioggia_ by the Venetians, and forced to surrender. After reducing the naval power of Genoa, they added _Verona_, _Vicenza_, and _Padua_ to their territories (1410). Under _Francesco Foscari_, who was doge from 1423 to 1457, Venice took an active part in Italian affairs.
FLORENCE: THE MEDICI.--In Florence, the _Medici_ family gained an influence which gave them a practical control of the government. In 1378 _Salvestro de Medici_ signalized himself by a successful resistance to an oligarchical faction composed partly of the old n.o.bility. The brilliant period in the history of Florence begins with this triumph of the democracy. _Pisa_ was bought from the Duke of Milan, and forced to submit to Florentine rule (1406). _John de Medici_, a very successful merchant, was twice chosen gonfalonier (1421). His son _Cosmo I_., who was born in 1389, was also a merchant, possessed of great wealth. He attained to the leading offices in the state, having overcome the _Albizzi_ family, at whose instigation he was for a while banished. _Cosmo_ ruled under the republican forms, but with not less authority on that account. He was distinguished for his patronage of art and letters. By his varied services to Florence, he earned the t.i.tle of "Father of his Country," which was given him by a public decree.
THE ROMAN PRINc.i.p.aLITY: RIENZI.--After the popes took up their abode in _Avignon_, in the first half of the fourteenth century, Rome was distracted by the feuds of leading families who built for themselves strongholds in the city. In 1347 the Romans, fired by the enthusiast _Rienzi_, who sought to restore the old Roman liberty, undertook to set up a government after the ancient model. _Rienzi_ was chosen _tribune_. He found much favor in other cities of Italy. But his head was turned by the seeming realization of his dreams. He was driven out of Italy by the cardinals and the n.o.bles. He returned afterwards, sent by Pope _Innocent VI_., to aid in winning back Rome to subjection to the Holy See. But his power was gone. He disgusted the people with his pomps and shows, and, while trying to escape in disguise, was put to death (1354). Cardinal _Albornoz_ succeeded in reuniting the dissevered parts of the papal kingdom. But in the period of the _Schism_ (1378-1417), in the cities old dynasties were revived, and new ones arose; towns and territories were ceded to n.o.bles as fiefs; and a degree of freedom almost amounting to independence was conceded to old republics, as _Rome_, _Perugia_, and _Bologna_. It was the work of Pope _Nicholas V_. and his successors (from 1477) to regain and cement anew the fragments of the papal princ.i.p.ality.
LITERATURE AND ART.--In this period, in the midst of political agitation in Italy, there was a brilliant development in the departments of literature and art. The major part of _Dante"s_ life (1265-1321) falls within the thirteenth century. _Petrarch_ (1304-1374), _Boccaccio_ (1313-1375), a master in Italian prose, and _Dante_, are the founders of Italian literature. They are followed by an era of study and culture, rather than of original production. In the arts, _Venice_ and _Pisa_ first became eminent. The church of _St. Mark_ was built at Venice, in the Byzantine style, in 1071. At about the same time the famous cathedral at _Pisa_ was begun; which was followed, in the twelfth century, by the _Baptistery_ and the _Leaning Tower_. The _Campo Santo_, or cemetery, was built in 1278. In the thirteenth century, when architectural industry was so active, numerous high brick towers were built in Florence for purposes of defense. Some of them remain "to recall the b.l.o.o.d.y feuds of the irreconcilable factions of the n.o.bility. In these conflicts, the strife was carried on from tower to tower, from house to house: streets were barricaded with heavy chains, and homes made desolate with fire and sword." Churches and great public buildings were constructed in this period. At the end of the thirteenth century the church of _Santa Croce_ was built at Florence; and in the century following, _Brunelleschi_, the reviver of cla.s.sical art in Italy, placed the great cupola on the Cathedral. The Gothic cathedral of _Milan_, with its wilderness of statues, was begun in 1346. _Cimabue_, who died about 1302, and _Giotto_, who died about 1337, laid the foundations of the modern Italian schools of painting.
TRADE AND COMMERCE.--The seaports, Venice and Genoa, were centers of a flourishing commerce, extending to the far East and to the coasts of Spain and France. The interior cities--_Milan_ with its two hundred thousand inhabitants, _Verona, Florence_--were centers of manufactures and of trade. The Italians were the first _bankers_ in Europe. The bank of _Venice_ was established in 1171, and the bank of _Genoa_, although it was projected earlier, was founded in 1407. The financial dealings of Italian merchants spread over all Europe.
MORALITY.--The one thing lacking in Italy was a broader spirit of patriotism and a higher tone of morality. Advance in civilization was attended with corruption of morals.
III. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.--Resistance to the Arabs in Spain began in the northern mountainous region of _Cantabria_ and _Asturia_, which even the West Goths had not wholly subdued, although _Asturia_ was called _Gothia_. _Asturia_, a Christian princ.i.p.ality (732), expanded into the kingdom called _Leon_ (916), of which Castile was an eastern county. East of _Leon_, there grew up the kingdom of _Navarre_, mostly on the southern, but partly on the northern side of the Pyrenees. On the death of _Sancho the Great_, it was broken up (1035). At about the same time the Ommiad caliphate was broken up into small kingdoms (1031). After the death of _Sancho_, or early in the eleventh century, we find in Northern Spain, beginning on the west and moving eastward, the kingdom of _Leon_, the beginnings of the kingdom of _Castile_, the reduced kingdom of _Navarre_, the beginnings of the kingdom of _Aragon_, and, between Aragon and the Mediterranean, Christian states which had been comprised in the _Spanish March_ over which the Franks had ruled. The two states which were destined to attain to the chief importance were _Castile_ and _Aragon_. Of these, _Castile_ was eventually to be to Spain what France was to all Gaul. Ultimately the union of _Castile_ and _Aragon_ gave rise to the great Spanish monarchy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The four kingdoms of _Leon, Castile, Aragon,_ and _Navarre_, after the death of _Sancho_, as time went on, were joined and disjoined among themselves in many different ways. _Castile_ and _Leon_ were finally united in 1230. _Portugal_, lying on the ocean, was partly recovered from the Arabs towards the close of the eleventh century, and was a county of _Leon_ and _Castile_ until, in 1139, it became a kingdom. From this time _Castile, Aragon,_ and _Portugal_ were the three antagonists of Moslem rule. Each of these kingdoms advanced. _Portugal_ spread especially along the Atlantic coast; _Aragon_, along the coast of the Mediterranean; _Castile_, the princ.i.p.al power, spread in the interior, and included by far the greater part of what is now Spain. In the latter part of the thirteenth century the Moslems were confined to the kingdom of _Granada_ in the South, which was conquered by _Castile_ and _Aragon_ (1492), whose _sovereigns, Ferdinand_ and _Isabella_, were united in marriage. Their _kingdoms_ were united in 1516. In the latter part of the Middle Ages, _Aragon_, from its situation on the eastern coast, played an important part in the politics of Europe. _Castile_ and _Portugal_ led the way in maritime exploration.
THE MOORS.--It has been already related (p. 282), that, after the fall of the Ommiad caliphate, African Mohammedans came over to the help of their Spanish brethren. These _Moors_ did not supplant the Arabic speech or culture. The two princ.i.p.al invasions of the Moors were the invasion by the _Almoravides_ (1086-110), and that by the _Almohades_ (1146).
ARAGON: NAVARRE.--The kingdoms of _Aragon_ and _Castile_ existed for centuries side by side. _Aragon_ sought to extend its conquests along the eastern coast; _Castile_, to enlarge itself toward the south. _James I._, or James the Conqueror (1213-1276), joined the Moslem state of _Valencia_, by conquest, to his kingdom of _Aragon_, to which _Catalonia_ had already been added. The union of these peoples developed a national character of a definite type. In its pride of birth and of blood, its tenacious clinging to traditional rights, and in its esteem of military prowess before intellectual culture, it resembled the old Spartan temper. _Peter III._,(1276-1285), the son of _James I._, united with the three states _Sicily_, which, though it became a separate kingdom, gave to the house of Aragon its influence in _Southern Italy_. Nearly the whole of the fourteenth century was taken up by Aragon in the acquisition of _Sardinia_, which the Pope had ceded, and in the endless wars, connected with this matter, which it waged with the _Genoese_. In 1410 the ruling house of _Barcelona_ became extinct. In the revolutions that followed, _Navarre_ and _Aragon_ were united under _John II._, second son of _Ferdinand I._, king of Aragon. _John_, by his marriage with _Blanche_ of Navarre, shared her father"s throne with her after his death. He was guilty of the crime of poisoning his own son _Don Carlos_, Prince of Vianne. John was the father of _Ferdinand_ "the Catholic," under whose scepter the kingdoms of _Aragon, Castile_, and _Navarre_ were brought together.
CASTILE.--_Ferdinand III_. (St. Ferdinand) (1214-1252), in warfare with the Moors extended the kingdom of _Castile_ and _Leon_ over _Cordova, Seville_, and _Cadiz_. His son _Alfonso X._, or Alfonso the Wise (1252-1284), cultivated astronomy and astrology, was fond of music and poetry, enlarged the University of Salamanca, gave a code of laws to his kingdom, and caused historical books to be written; but he wasted his treasures in pomp and luxury, and in ambitious designs upon the German imperial crown. He allowed the _Merinides_, new swarms of African Saracens, to spread in the South of Spain. _Alfonso XI._ (1312-1350), after a stormy contest with the n.o.bles during his minority, distinguished himself by the victory of _Tarifa_ over the Moors (1340), and the taking of the city of _Algeciras_ (1344). His enemies respected him; and when he died of the plague, in his camp before Gibraltar, the king of _Granada_ went into mourning (1350). The reign of _Peter the Cruel_ (1350-1369) was filled up with perfidies and crimes. The league of the n.o.bles against him only incited him to fresh barbarities. He committed the most atrocious murders, sometimes with his own hand. Protected by the _Black Prince_, he was at first victorious against _Henry of Transtamare_ his rival; and Du Guesclin was defeated in the battle of _Najara_ in 1367. Afterwards _Peter_ was obliged to surrender, and was killed by the dagger of _Henry_ in a personal encounter. The power of the n.o.bility in _Castile_ had so increased during the civil troubles that _Henry III_. (1390-1406) had to sell his cloak to procure for himself a dinner. Roused by this humiliation to a.s.sert his authority, he succeeded with the help of the _Cortes_ in humbling the n.o.bility; but _John II_. (1406-1454) was compelled by the most powerful lords, after a protracted contest, to strike off the head of an unworthy favorite, _Alvaro de Luna_, under whose despotic control he had placed the government (1454). There was a worse state of anarchy under _Henry IV._, John"s successor (1454-1474).
CONSt.i.tUTIONS OF ARAGON AND CASTILE.--The political inst.i.tutions of _Aragon_ and _Castile_ are specially worthy of note. The kings of _Aragon_ were very much restricted in their authority by the _Cortes_, or general a.s.sembly, composed of the higher and lower cla.s.ses of n.o.bles, the clergy, and the cities, which by their trade and manufactures had risen to wealth and power. With the _Cortes_ was lodged the right to make laws and to lay taxes. At _Saraga.s.sa_ in 1287, it was likewise ordained that they should enjoy certain important _privileges._ The concurrence of the estates was to be required in the choice of the king"s _counselors;_ and in case the king without the warrant of a judgment of the highest judicial officer, _the justiciary,_ and of the estates, should adjudge to punishment any member of the body, they should have the right to elect another king. These "privileges"
were lost under _Peter IV._ (1336-1387), but the old rights were confirmed. To the _justiciary_ was given the power to determine all conflicts of the estates with the king or with one another. His influence increased as time went on. He was the first magistrate in the kingdom.
In _Castile,_ as early as 1169 the deputies of the cities were admitted into the Cortes. We find the cities, at the end of the thirteenth century, forming a confederation, called a "fraternity,"
against the n.o.bles. Their deputies at that time had more power in the a.s.semblies than the n.o.bles and clergy. But the power of the n.o.bles increased, especially from the accession of _Henry of Transtamare._ In the overthrow of _Alvaro de Luna,_ their triumph was complete: they proved themselves to be stronger than the king.
THE CASTILIANS.--The Spanish Mohammedans were superior in refinement to their Christian adversaries. The latter learned much from their enemies, without losing the patriotic and religious ardor which was fostered by the popular minstrelsy, and by the romantic exploits and encounters with the "infidels." The result was the peculiar spirit of Castilian chivalry. The early development of popular government in _Castile_ increased the feeling of personal independence. Outside of Italy, no cities of Europe in the Middle Ages were so rich and flourishing as the cities of _Castile,_ Materials of commerce were afforded by the famous breed of sheep, and by the products of the soil and of manufactures. The n.o.bles gained great wealth, and had vast estates in the country. They held court as petty sovereigns: _Alvaro de Luna_ had twenty thousand va.s.sals. They were inured to war, they were haughty and overbearing, and complaints of their oppressions were frequent on the part of the lower orders. The Castilian ecclesiastics were often lax in their morals. The higher prelates were possessed of great riches and authority. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the people in _Castile_ had more power, compared with the power of the sovereign, than in any other European country. But the representation of the commons was exclusively from the cities, and not, as in England, largely from the landed proprietors.
THE ARAGONESE.--The extraordinary authority exercised by the _justiciary,_ or justice, of Aragon was perhaps the most remarkable feature of its const.i.tution. Dwelling on the ocean, the Aragonese built up a naval power. _Barcelona,_ after its union with Aragon, was the seat of a flourishing commerce, and framed the first written code of maritime law now extant. Its munic.i.p.al officers were merchants and mechanics. Membership in the guilds was sought by n.o.bles, as rendering them eligible to the magistracy. The burghers became proud and independent. The Catalans did not hesitate to a.s.sert their rights against encroachments of the kings. In 1430 the University of Barcelona was founded. "After the genuine race of troubadours had pa.s.sed away," says Mr. Prescott, "the Provencal or Limousin verse was carried to its highest excellence by the poets of Valencia" (Prescott"s _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,_ Introduction).
PORTUGAL: COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.--About 1095 _Alfonso VI.,_ king of _Castile_ and _Leon,_ gave the territory between the _Minho_ and the _Douro_ to his son-in-law, _Henry of Burgundy,_ who a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Count of Portugal. His son and successor, _Alfonso I.,_ who defeated the Moors at _Ourique_ in 1139, was hailed as king by his army, and later was confirmed in the t.i.tle by the Pope (1185). He was acknowledged as independent by the king of Castile. In a diet at _Laimego_, he gave an excellent const.i.tution and body of laws to his people (1143). Soon after, he conquered _Lisbon_, and made it his capital. His son, _Sancho I._ (1185-1211), was distinguished both for his victories over the Moors and for his encouragement of tillage and of farm-laborers. Until we reach the fifteenth century, Portuguese history is occupied with wars with the Moors and the Castilians, contests of the kings with the n.o.bles, and struggles between rival aspirants for the throne, and between the sovereigns on the one hand and the clergy and the popes on the other. Under _Dionysius III_. (1279-1325) there began a new era, in which the Portuguese became eminent for industry and learning, and in commerce and navigation. He founded the University of Lisbon. _Alfonso IV_. (1325-1357) continued on the same path. But he caused _Ines de Castro_, who had been secretly married to his son, to be murdered (1354); a crime which the son, _Peter I_. (1357-1367), after his accession, avenged by causing the hearts of the murderers to be torn out. _John I_. (1385-1433) repelled a great invasion of the Castilians, in a battle near Lisbon, and became at first regent and then king. He was the founder of a new family. By him _Ceuta_ in Africa was captured from the Moors. _Madeira_ was discovered (1419), and by the burning of the forests was prepared for the cultivation of sugar-cane and the vine. In 1432 the Portuguese occupied the _Azores_. A most active interest in voyages of discovery was taken by _Prince Henry the Navigator_ (1394-1460), fourth son of King _John I_. and of _Philippa_, daughter of _John of Gaunt_.