No More Learning

On the other
hand, it is by no means certain that Conrad was in possession of this information
when he took the decisive step.
23
C. MED, H. VOL. V. CH. X.


## p. 354 (#400) ############################################

354
The Wendish Crusade
tine. Some few days later another vast army-the French crusaders-
assembled at Metz and followed in the footsteps of the German host
on its way eastward.
In Saxony also the crusading spirit penetrated; but the princes ob-
tained leave from the Pope to direct their energies not against the Turk
but against the heathen Slavd. On the death of Lothar development in
these regions had received a sharp set-back. The civil war which followed
Conrad's accession was the signal for a Wendish rebellion. The strong
fortress of Segeberg was taken, the German settlements destroyed; the
town of Lübeck was burnt, the surrounding country devastated. The
danger spread to Holstein, where the quick action of Henry of Badwide
alone saved the situation : he took the field in mid-winter (1138-9) and
drove the Wends back across the Trave. But further progress was im-
possible while Saxony was in the throes of civil war. Only when peace
was restored in 1142 was the work of German expansion again undertaken.
The revival was due to the energy and enterprise of the Count of Holstein,
Adolf of Schauenburg? In 1143, once more in possession of his county,
he threw himself into the work of Germanising the Slavonic country with
renewed vigour. Immigrants poured in from the over-populated districts
of Westphalia, Frisia, and Holland, and received lands under the most
favourable conditions of tenure. Lübeck was rebuilt and, owing to its
excellent harbour, soon became the station through which all the trade
between Scandinavia and Southern Europe passed; Adolf formed an
alliance with Niclot, prince of the neighbouring Wendish tribe, the Obo-
trites, to secure the protection of his town. Over and above its commercial
advantages it became one of the centres for the work of conversion of
the heathen, to which the priest Vicelin for many years past had devoted
his life, and for which on 29 June 1147 the Saxon princes assembled at
Magdeburg in fulfilment of their crusading vows. The news of the
intended campaign roused the Wends to rebellion. Niclot, notwith-
standing his alliance with Adolf, sailed up the Trave against Lübeck.
The citizens, engaged in celebrating the feast of SS. John and Paul
(26 June) and too drunken to offer effective resistance, were brutally
massacred; the Slavs followed up their success, overran the whole province
of Wagria to the very walls of Segeberg, its chief stronghold, burning
and plundering as they went, killing those who resisted, and carrying the
wonien and children into slavery. Their course was not however entirely
unchecked; the colonists of Eutin and Süssel effectively withstood the
invaders who, hearing that Count Adolf was about to take the field
1 The Saxon princes received all the privileges usually granted to crusaders;
but they wore, as a mark of distinction, the cross surrounded by a circle. Otto of
Freising, Gesta Friderici, 1, 40.
2 He had been the victim of the personal animosity of Gertrude, who had con-
firmed the grant of Holstein made by Albert the Bear to Henry of Badwide.
Helmold, Chron. Slav. 1, 56. After Gertrude's death the country was restored to
Adolf, while Henry of Badwide was compensated with lands elsewhere.


## p. 355 (#401) ############################################

Growth of the power of Henry the Lion
355
against them, wisely retired with their booty to the fortress of Dobin on
the Lake of Schwerin.
In the meanwhile the preparations for launching the Crusade were
nearing completion. All the foremost men in Saxony, among them the
young Duke Henry and his rival Albert the Bear, and from the south
Conrad of Zähringen, gathered with their levies on the feast of SS. Peter
and Paul at Magdeburg. But there were yet more to come in; without
waiting for the loiterers, one part of the army, numbering some 40,000
men, under the leadership of Duke Henry, Conrad of Zähringen, and
Archbishop Adalbero of Bremen, set off against the rebellious Niclot in
the fastness of Dobin. The Saxon host was reinforced by an army from
Denmark, which had suffered severely from the inroads of the Slavs; and,
though the country had been lacerated by civil war since the death of
Eric III in 1146, the two claimants to the throne, Svein and Canute,
had put aside their internal controversies in order to crush their common
enemy. But the Crusade was doomed to failure. Private interests inter-
posed, and the aim that they set out to accomplish was neglected; disputes
arose over territory not yet won, while the Saxon and Danish chiefs failed
hopelessly to maintain any unity of action. On 31 July the Danes met
with a serious defeat, and it was said the Germans received bribes to leave
their Danish allies to their fate. When at last they succeeded in bringing
Dobin to submission they granted very easy terms to the garrison; it was
in the interest of the princes to keep a tributary population, and therefore
they abstained from anything in the nature of annihilation; hence to
accept Christianity, to free the Danish prisoners, to cease from making
devastating attacks across the border, were the only conditions imposed
on the conquered Slavs. Even these moreover were not strictly enforced.
They received Christianity only to renounce it as soon as they secured
their liberty; of the Danish prisoners, only the old and infirm gained
their freedom, while the more vigorous were retained as slaves.
Hardly more successful were the achievements of the second army.
Sixty thousand men under the command of Albert the Bear and a number
of North German bishops, supplemented by large contingents from Poland
and Bohemia, crossed the Elbe and advanced northward through the
Havel country, while the Wends retreated into the inaccessible swamps
and forests of the interior. The crusaders besieged the town of Demmin,
and pushing on into Pomerania would have attacked Stettin had it
not been for the Pomeranian Bishop Adalbert, the pupil of Otto of
Bamberg, who realised that it would mean the undoing of the life-work
of his master. They turned back from the Oder and early in September
recrossed the Elbe, having accomplished nothing. The whole enterprise
had entirely failed in its avowed purpose. The princes had made the
crusading badge the pretext for a war of personal profit; the work of
Adolf and Vicelin was retarded rather than promoted by these campaigns.
The German colonists had to bear the brunt of the widespread devastation
CH. X.
23-2


## p. 356 (#402) ############################################

356
Alliance with the Byzantine Empire
and its resultant, severe famine. It was with the greatest difficulty that
they were persuaded not to abandon their new homes, where they found
it, in the circumstances, far from easy to maintain a livelihood.
The years following the Wendish Crusade witness the rapid develop-
ment of the power of Henry the Lion. The main obstacle in his path of
progress was Hartwig, first provost, then, in 1148, Archbishop of Bremen,
a man of worldly ideas, greedy of material wealth, ambitious for hier-
archical power, whose aim was to restore the old supremacy of his see in
northern Germany. As early as 1144, when Henry was but fourteen years
old, the two had come to blows over a disputed inheritance, consequent
upon
the childless death of Count Rudolf of Stade. Conrad intervened
and ultimately decided against the young duke, who had in the course of
the quarrel given offence by capturing and imprisoning not only his rival
Hartwig but the Archbishop Adalbero of Bremen himself. The result
was a lifelong enmity between Henry and Hartwig and strained relations
between Henry and the king. Hartwig, on his accession to the see in
August 1148, first attempted to recover the suffragan bishoprics of
Scandinavia which had been lost by the creation of the metropolitan
diocese of Lund in 1104; but as the Pope refused to consider his request
he turned his attention to the east, to the three bishoprics of Slavonia:
Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, and Ratzburg. Oldenburg was given to Vicelin
as a reward for his thirty years of missionary work, and Mecklenburg to
a fellow-worker named Emmehard; good as the appointments were, they
were made without reference either to Duke Henry or to Count Adolf;
the former, who claimed the right of investiture, refused to give the lay
support necessary for the progress of Vicelin's work, the latter cut off the
tithes on which the church depended for its maintenance. Proselytism
among the Wends remained at a deadlock until Vicelin, realising that
only submission to the duke could enable him to continue his labours,
despite the wishes of his metropolitan, received investiture from Henry's
hands at Lüneburg (1151).
In the summer of 1149 Conrad, after the disastrous failure of his
Crusade, was again in Germany. His intention was now to make his long
wished-for campaign to Italy with the twofold purpose of receiving the
imperial crown and of subduing his enemy, Roger of Sicily. For the
latter project he had, while staying at Constantinople on his return from
Palestine, definitely clinched the alliance with the Eastern Emperor,
Manuel, which had for some time past been the subject of negotiations
and which had been strengthened by Manuel's marriage with Conrad's
sister-in-law Bertha of Sulzbach in 1146. At the meeting of the two
Emperors a joint expedition against Roger was arranged. This move was
parried by a counterstroke from Roger; he had an interview with Welf,
who returned from the East by way of Sicily, and agreed to pay him the
yearly sum of a thousand marks for keeping the German king busy in his
own kingdom. Conrad's schemes for a visit to Italy were again frustrated;


## p. 357 (#403) ############################################

Last activities and death of Conrad
357
he found on his return to Germany that the work on his hands would
keep him engaged north of the Alps for some time to come.
At the great diet of Frankfort, when the plans for the Crusade had
been arranged, Henry the Lion had raised his claim upon the dukedom
of Bavaria ; he had denied the finality of the settlement reached and
accepted by his guardians in his name at Frankfort five years earlier.
Without giving a decisive answer Conrad postponed the question till his
return; it now required an answer, and it became daily more certain that
if the answer should be unfavourable to Henry there would again be
recourse to arms. For war Conrad was but poorly equipped. Whereas
Henry's position during the last two years had been steadily growing
stronger, Conrad's had grown perceptibly weaker. He had, for instance,
by his injudicious interference in the affairs of the Burgundian kingdom
estranged the powerful Swabian family of Zähringen ; Conrad with his
son Berthold definitely declared for the Welfs, and sealed the alliance by
a marriage between his daughter Clementia and the Duke of Saxony. On
the other hand, in Saxony itself the king could rely on some support.
Henry's strong rule had made him enemies, his increasing power in the
country beyond the Elbe was not entirely popular with the Saxon princes,
and, most important of all, his rival Albert the Bear had recently
strengthened his hand by the acquisition of the district which about this
time came to be known under the name of its principal town, Branden-
burg? Immediately on Conrad's return, Henry renewed his claim upon
the duchy of Bavaria, and, as the king took no steps to deal with the
matter, quietly assumed the title of Duke of Bavaria and Saxony.
Tedious negotiations, frequent diets, underhand diplomacy, characterise
the development of the dispute during the remainder of Conrad's lifetime.
The impetuous and premature campaign of Welf in Swabia in February
1150, his siege of the Hohenstaufen castle of Flochberg, and his utter
defeat at the hands of the young King Henry, made little difference to
the situation. An equally ineffective and brief campaign by Duke Henry
himself in Bavaria, the details of which are unknown, resulted only in a
truce and more negotiations. Conrad's feverish anxiety to make his
journey to Rome (he was urged on by embassies from Venice and Con-
stantinople, and 8 September 1152 had been fixed for the setting-out of the
expedition) is the only justification for the means he now employed
during time of truce to crush his rival. With the object of undermining
Henry's authority in Saxony itself, he sent his chaplain, Herbert, to sow
dissension among the Saxon princes, and he himself soon followed to Goslar
1 It was bequeathed by the Slavonic prince Plotislav, who died childless in 1150.
Cf. Henricus de Antwerpe, Tractatus de Captione urbis Brandenburg, MGH, Script.
xxv, 482, “Et cum non haberet heredem, Marchionem Albertum sui principatus
instituit successorem. ”
? “Dux Bavariae et Saxoniae” appears in a document of 13 September 1149.
Bernhardi, op. cit. 839, n. 3.
CH. X.


## p. 358 (#404) ############################################

358
Failure of the reign
with the intention of besieging the duke's capital, Brunswick. The
strictest secrecy was observed with regard to his plans and movements,
while a close watch was kept upon Henry, who was then in Swabia, to
prevent him returning to his duchy where his personal influence would be
the undoing of the king's plans. Henry, however, eluded his watchers,
escaped in disguise from Swabia (December 1151), and after five days
hard riding appeared unexpectedly at Brunswick. Conrad's schemes com-
pletely collapsed; and having no heart to continue the struggle he
withdrew hastily to Goslar and soon abandoned Saxony altogether. This
unlucky and degrading enterprise was the last event in a far from brilliant
career; Conrad fell ill at Bamberg, and died on 15 February 1152.
Failure was the keynote of the reign of the first king of the house of
Hohenstaufen. Failure dogged his steps in every enterprise. In spite of
long fighting and interminable diplomacy, the Welfs remained unsubdued;
a brilliantly equipped expedition to Syria had ended in a dismal
catastrophe; the king's intervention in the quarrels of his neighbours
achieved nothing; for the first time since the revival of the Empire by
Otto the Great the German king had not been crowned at Rome. The
early promise of Conrad as the young, energetic, popular anti-king to
Lothar remained sadly unfulfilled when he came to rule as a lawful
sovereign. Yet it is difficult to see the cause of this almost uninterrupted
misadventure. The bulk of his subjects, jealous of the over-great power
of the Welfs, were ready to give him their support and accept him as
their champion. Nor had his difficulties their origin in the fatal quarrel
with the Church which had been the undoing of the Salian Emperors.
On the contrary he was in harmony with Rome, he interfered not at all
in ecclesiastical elections, his zeal for the protection of the Church and
its property against lay aggression was worthy of all praise; he was a
devoted son of the Church. “Never," says Giesebrecht, "had the concord
between Church and State been greater. ” His character and attainments
would justify the highest hopes for the success of his rule. The poet-
chronicler Godfrey of Viterbo compares him to the ancient personifications
of the virtues: “a Seneca in council, a Paris in appearance, a Hector in
battle. "ı Abbot Wibald of Stablo, a man of shrewd judgment and great
sincerity and candour, cannot speak too highly of his Emperor's character;
piety, clemency, moderation, generosity, intellectual ability, sense of
humour are all the subject of his praise? ; bravery and tireless energy
were his to a remarkable degree. Such in the eyes of contemporaries was
the man who beyond a doubt lowered the prestige of Germany. The
difficulties with which he was confronted were certainly great; to the
political troubles were added those arising from bad harvests and conse-
quent famine and discontent. In spite of his many fine qualities he
1 MGH, Script. xxii, p. 263, 51.
2 See e. g. Epistolae 364 and 375 in Jaffé, Monumenta Corbeiensia.


## p. 359 (#405) ############################################

Conrad's lack of statesmanship
359
seems to have lacked foresight and statesmanship; his policy was often
undecided or injudicious. Disappointment at his initial lack of success
brought out the weaker sides of his character, and the chaotic state of
things which prevailed during his last years was the result. It is curious
to notice that but one contemporary writer connects the disorders of the
kingdom in any way with its ruler. The royal chronicle of Cologne, after
eulogising the king's merits, remarks: “under him the country began to
be ruined by misfortune. " Indeed it required all the powers of states-
manship with which his nephew Frederick Barbarossa was so richly
endowed to extricate Germany from the disruptive condition in which
Conrad left it.
сн. х.


## p. 360 (#406) ############################################

360
CHAPTER XI.
ITALY, 1125-1152.
The treaty which was concluded at Worms in 1122 between Pope
Calixtus II and the Emperor Henry V marks the close of a great
period of history. With that treaty the long contest which took its
name from the question of Investitures ended, when its chief interest
was becoming exhausted and new times were bringing new tendencies.
Neither power could boast a complete victory. The strength of an idea,
the unity of Christendom, which animated both Empire and Papacy,
formed a bulwark to each institution against every attempt of the other
towards full supremacy. Yet, during the strife, the Papacy had vastly
improved its political position, more especially in relation to the Empire.
Raised to a great moral height by the internal reform which had been
effected, chiefly by the impulse given by the genius of Gregory VII, the
Papacy had conquered in the world a very different position from that
which it had held in the time of the Ottos and the early Henries. The
universality of its spiritual jurisdiction was now recognised, and, if
causes of new discords could arise with regard to the frontiers between
that jurisdiction and other powers, at least the Papacy's independence of
those powers was securely established. On its side, the Empire had con-
tested with energy the papal claims and the tendency of the Church to
withdraw itself, even in temporal things, from the dominion of every
royal right, and to create almost a State within the State. Owing to
this opposition, the Church had been obliged to accept limits and
restraints for its aggressive and domineering inclinations. Still, the long
resistance of the Papacy, and its preaching of the First Crusade, which
it proclaimed to the world while the Empire, its foe, could take no part
therein, diminished the ideal conception of the universal power of the
Emperor. He was in so far placed in a position of inferiority towards
the Pope, who was establishing himself securely as lord of souls and
spiritual director of the world.
Meanwhile, in Italy throughout the eleventh century there were
developing the hidden seeds of a great transformation. The ancient
Latin civilisation, torpid for centuries but never dead, was slowly awaking.
The new elements in the population, which one after another had pene-
trated into Italy, had at last completed their laborious fusion with the
ancient elements, which, as they absorbed them, joined with them in


## p. 361 (#407) ############################################

Transformation in Italy
361
unfolding the beginning of a new life. In North Italy the distance of
the imperial authority had favoured the almost unnoted development of
another factor in Italian life, the Commune, which speedily grew vigorous,
especially in Lombardy, and diminished or annihilated the strength of
feudal institutions, and was soon to stand proud and threatening even in
face of the Emperor. Intellectual culture, which had never entirely failed
among Italian laymen even when it had sunk to its lowest point among
the clergy, took on a new development; at the same time as agriculture,
manufactures and commerce began to flourish in Lombardy and Central
Italy, and, reaching the sea-routes, came to Venice, to Pisa, and to Genoa,
whose maritime power spread daily more and more. The exuberant
growth, the wealth, the vigour of the communes nourished in them a need
of independence, which, on one side, undermined the foundations of the
power of the feudal nobility, and, on the other, rendered those sturdy
plebeians impatient of the rights and authority which were claimed over
them by the Empire. Southern Italy and Sicily contained districts which
were prosperous owing to the richness of the soil and the long tradition
of maritime commerce; and there the Norman princes were gathering
together in one dominion the various elements which co-existed in regions
occupied for centuries by rulers so diverse in tendencies of civilisation, in
religion, and in race. It was a combination not yet close and united, but
already strong through the energy, the wealth, and the fine political
ability of the Norman dynasty, ever on the watch to draw new advantages
from the various relations, sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, in
which it stood with the Empires of East and West, and the near and
jealous authority of the Roman pontiffs. The Norman princes aroused
both the good wishes and the fears of the Church; the Papacy saw in
their growing power the possibility of a support for itself, but still more
the development of a neighbour which was too strong and ever determined
to use its strength without scruple.
The new period of the relations of Italy and the Papacy with the
Empire began soon after the conclusion of the Concordat of Worms,
on the death of the Emperor Henry V in 1125 and the extinction
of the Franconian house. In Germany there was discord over the election
of a new king. At the Diet of Mayence, on 30 August 1125, Lothar of
Supplinburg, Duke of Saxony, was elected King of the Romans, but not
without opposition. A powerful party favoured another candidate,
Frederick of Hohenstaufen, Duke of Swabia. He was considered both
the natural successor of Henry V to whom he was nearly related, and the
heir of the political traditions of the Salian house. The ecclesiastical
party in Germany, on the other hand, favoured Lothar, and it was
possible for Pope Honorius II, in supporting the Saxon, to shew clearly
all the weight and importance of his aid. Lothar was elected, but
Frederick of Swabia did not submit to the election, and civil war burst
out in Germany, putting the Crown in a danger which the beginning of
CH. XI.


## p. 362 (#408) ############################################

362
Difficulties of the Papacy
an unfortunate war with Bohemia rendered the more serious. In such
grave circumstances, Lothar naturally appreciated all the value of the
Church's help, and he found the Pope eager to give it, whether in order
to profit thereby in gaining a better position in his relations with the
Empire, or because of the fear with which the anti-papal tendencies of
the Hohenstaufen inspired him.
In fact, the Pope, on his side, had need of Lothar, and understood
all the opportunities offered by an alliance with him. While the principle
of papal authority had been so exalted in the face of the royal authority
and in the conscience of distant peoples, the Pope did not find close at
hand that deference and submission which would allow his activity to
develop. In South Italy, the Norman policy upset all the papal schemes
and claims. William, Duke of Apulia, died childless at Salerno in 1127,
and Roger II, Count of Sicily, who claimed to be his natural heir,
hastened to Apulia to take possession of his lands. The Pope, invoking
his feudal suzerainty over William's territories, proceeded to Benevento,
and hurled sentence of excommunication against Roger, who, far from
being terrified, countered him by laying waste the Beneventan country-
side. The Pope stirred up Robert, Prince of Capua, and many barons
against his foe, but was soon, against his will, obliged to yield, and in
August 1128 had to submit to invest Roger with the duchy of Apulia
and Calabria. Thus a strong monarchy was founded, while for the moment
there remained no other advantage to the Papacy than a theoretic right
of suzerainty over it.
Meanwhile, in Latium the more powerful barons exercised a lordship
against which the forces of Honorius were spent in continual war. Rome
itself, although always divided by the factions of the more powerful
families, seems to have allowed him to enjoy some kind of peace; but it
was a truce rather than a peace, as his successors were very soon to learn.
The ferment of political life, which was raising up the other Italian
communes, was working too in Rome, and rendered the citizens ever more
impatient of the pontifical rule, to which they had never felt themselves
wholly subject. Never quite autonomous, never quite subjects either of
Pope or Emperor, the medieval Romans were for centuries in a truly
singular position. At this time events were pending which were to deter-
mine Rome's tendencies towards communal autonomy, and cause the vain
dream of lost greatness to hover over the Capitol.
To these diverse circumstances, which caused Honorius to desire the
coming of Lothar, there was added another which gave him motive and
opportunity to repeat the invitation to hasten to Rome for the imperial
crown. In Germany, the party favourable to the house of Swabia not
only was still in revolt but in December 1127 at Spires had raised up
another king against Lothar in the person of Conrad of Hohenstaufen,
brother to Frederick of Swabia, who agreed to the election. Conrad,
leaving his brother in Germany to defend his cause in arms, descended


## p. 363 (#409) ############################################

The disputed election of 11307
363
into Italy, where Anselm Pusterla, Archbishop of Milan, placed the Iron
Crown on his head ; and the new king immediately advanced his claims
to the inheritance of Countess Matilda. These claims alone, without any
other reasons, would have sufficed to make Honorius his enemy; and the
Pope did not hesitate to excommunicate him along with the archbishop
who had crowned him. In spite of the excommunication, however, Conrad
maintained himself in Italy, and found his chief support in the Milanese,
who were to be later such bold and tenacious adversaries of his house.
On 13 February 1130 Honorius II died at Rome, and his death was the
beginning of a most dangerous schism in the Church. On the same day
Cardinal Gregory, titular of Sant'Angelo, and Cardinal Peter, titular of
St Calixtus, were elected almost at the same moment, and took respec-
tively the names of Innocent II and Anacletus II. Both were members of
powerful Roman houses: Innocent belonged to the Papareschi, Anacletus
to the Pierleonil. Their elevation threw Rome into discord. Both
elections had been hasty, both perhaps hardly canonical; but there were
plausible reasons for maintaining the validity of either, and the case was
doubtful. Without delay both the claimants vigorously maintained their
pretensions before the world, and both turned to Lothar with the object
of attracting his support; but Lothar, doubtful and occupied with
German affairs, at first avoided declaring for either. It was indubitably
most important to obtain the recognition of the Emperor-designate, but
other powerful influences affected Christendom and served to decide its
future. From the beginning, while Christendom was still uncertain
between the two rivals, Innocent appeared more confident in himself and
in his right, and this confidence was not without its value. Thanks to
the great power of the Pierleoni, who held the upper hand in Rome,
Anacletus, master of the Vatican and supported by the greatest Roman
nobles, soon forced Innocent to take to flight; he went by sea to Pisa,
and thence by way of Genoa betook himself to France. He found his
chief stay in St Bernard, who after a brief hesitation espoused his cause.
This extraordinary man, whose fascination drew his contemporaries
irresistibly whithersoever his inspired zeal called them, soon saw with
what troubles a schism at that time would be charged, and threw himself
into a combat for the unity of the Church. His influence had the greatest
weight. The Kings of France and England decided for Innocent, and one
after the other in January 1131 met him with every demonstration of
reverence and honour. Their example was soon followed by the King of
the Romans. On 22 March 1131, Innocent and Lothar met at Liège,
where the Pope held a synod, in which he hurled the anathema against
Anacletus and against Conrad and Frederick of Hohenstaufen. A few
days later, on 29 March, Innocent repaired to the cathedral with great
1 The Pierleoni were descended from a converted Jew, Benedict, who lived
c.
1020, a relative of whom Pope Gregory VI (John Gratian) seems to have been.
Cf. R. L. Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI, Proc. Brit. Acad. Vol. viii.
сн. XI


## p. 364 (#410) ############################################

364
Lothar III and the schism
pomp, while the king acted as his squire and held the bridle of his horse;
then the Pope solemnly placed the royal crown on the heads of Lothar
and of his wife Richenza. At the meeting at Liège it was settled that
Lothar should proceed to Rome to receive the imperial crown, and to
recover for Innocent the city from the anti-Pope. Taking the oppor-
tunity, Lothar attempted to re-open the question of Investitures, and to
recover the advantages which the Empire had lost; but he met with
a firm resistance, and St Bernard, along with the German prelates who
were in favour of the rights of the Church, supported the Pope. Lothar
understood that it would be unwise to insist, and was obliged to yield
and abandon the attempt.
The schism could now be considered as overcome in the main; but
Anacletus had still sufficient strength to resist the recognised Pope. The
cities of north and central Italy, intent on their special interests, had not
been much excited over the schism, but sided in general with Innocent,
with the exception of Milan, which favoured Anacletus more owing to its
political opposition to Lothar than for any other reason. Yet Anacletus
was master of Rome, and, strongly established there, had turned to the
south for aid and become closely allied to Roger of Sicily. The shrewd
Norinan was not slow to see the profit which he could gain from this
alliance. He met Anacletus at Avellino on 27 September 1130, and, in
return for an annual tribute in recognition of the papal suzerainty,
obtained the title of "King of Sicily and of the Duchies of Apulia and
Calabria. ” Thus the foundation of a southern monarchy, to which
Honorius II had formerly agreed with reluctance, was now consecrated by
the concessions of an anti-Pope, which in the sequel were to be confirmed
and permanently recognised by the legitimate pontifical authority.
Although the state of the German kingdom was anything but quiet,
it was indispensable that Lothar should turn his thoughts to Italy, and,
after making his authority prevail there, come back to Germany with
the prestige and strength which the imperial crown would gain him. In
the summer of 1132 he started; but the harassing circumstances of
the time did not allow him to collect a strong army. Accompanied
by Queen Richenza, he passed the Alps and descended into Italy. From
the first, owing to the scanty forces at his disposal and the hostility of
powerful communes like Verona and Milan, he could make little show of
authority. He attempted in vain to subdue Crema, and, after having lost
a month in the useless siege, had to cross Lombardy warily, avoiding the
places which shewed themselves hostile and approaching those cities
which favoured him more by reason of their enmity to Milan than
because of their reverence for the Empire. In November, he met Innocent,
who had preceded him to Lombardy, and on the plain of Roncaglia held
a diet, in which he consulted on the general condition of the Church and
the Empire with the Pope and such Lombards as had answered his
summons. Together with the Pope he marched from Piacenza towards


## p. 365 (#411) ############################################

Lothar at Rome
365
Rome, slowly journeying amid populations which greeted him with
coldness or hostility. His position could have become very dangerous, if
Roger II had been in a condition to face him and annihilate his forces
at one blow, and so assure Rome to Anacletus and to himself the
unquestioned recognition of his kingdom of Sicily. But in the summer
of 1132 a revolt of the barons of the Regno', followed by a severe defeat,
put Roger's crown in peril; he was obliged to withdraw to Sicily to pre-
pare a reaction, whilst Benevento, rebelling against Anacletus, opened its
gates to the legates of Innocent II. Even with this advantage, however,
the Pope and Lothar were in the midst of great difficulties, and the
advance towards Rome proceeded most slowly. Quitting Lothar, the
Pope went to Pisa, where, aided at Genoa by St Bernard, he succeeded
with much ado in composing a peace between the Pisans and Genoese,
which assured him the assistance of the two rival sea-powers. He joined
the king again at Viterbo, and went thence with him to Rome. Some
attempts of Anacletus to justify his claim before Lothar gave rise to
negotiations which had no success.
Lothar remained some weeks at Rome, while these negotiations
continued ; perhaps he and Innocent craftily hoped to gain by them
possession of the church of St Peter, and to perform there according to
ancient custom the ceremony of coronation. But St Peter's, like the
greater part of the city, remained in the hands of Anacletus and his
partisans. On 4 June 1133 Lothar and Richenza assumed the imperial
crown in the Lateran, after Lothar had taken the customary oath to the
Pope and guaranteed the privileges of the city. The aid given to
Innocent in Rome had amounted to very little, and a longer stay in
Italy was impossible for Lothar, who was obliged at once to think of his
return. Before separating, however, Pope and Emperor confirmed in
substance the Concordat of Worms, and came to an agreement over their
respective claims to the inheritance of Countess Matilda. The Pope
conceded the use of it to Lothar and his son-in-law Henry, Duke of
Bavaria, for their lifetime; they were to hold it of the Church, to which
it should return at their deaths. Thus Matilda's lands were held by the
Emperor as a fief from the Pope. Morally the Papacy rose ever higher
in comparison with the Empire. The coronation and its significance
were commemorated in a painting placed in the Lateran, which repre-
sented Lothar at the feet of the Pope at the moment of receiving the
crown; and beneath it were to be read these two lines, which were later
to give rise to bitter complaints, for they contained a bold assertion of
the complete supremacy of the Papacy:
Rex stetit ante fores, iurans prius Urbis honores;
Post homo fit Papae, sumit quo dante coronam.
1 We adopt on occasion the convenient Italian use of “the Regno (Kingdom)” as
a general name for “the kingdom of Sicily, and of the duchies of Apulia and Cala-
bria,” to avoid unnecessary confusion with the island of Sicily.
сH. XI.


## p. 366 (#412) ############################################

366
Lothar's second expedition
The return of Lothar to Germany left Innocent II in an extremely
perilous situation in Rome, confined as he was within a small district of
the city, and almost besieged by the powerful Anacletus and his more
numerous partisans. King Roger, with fresh troops collected in Sicily, had
returned, victorious and menacing, to Apulia. Thereon Innocent was forced
once more to flee from Rome and take refuge at Pisa. But his situation was
far from being desperate. Their jealousy of Roger's sea-power silenced for
a moment the rivalry of Genoa and Pisa, and united the two republics in
favour of Innocent, who therefore met with an honourable reception at
Pisa, and there held a synod. Although an exile from his see, he
was now universally recognised as head of Christendom, and the little
opposition that was left continually decreased. Even the Milanese
yielded to the fiery fascination of St Bernard, who had visited them ;
they came over to Innocent's side, and abandoned their Archbishop,
Anselm Pusterla. The schism, now confined to Rome and South Italy,
could not have long duration.
The auguries were more propitious for Lothar in Germany, and, now
that his prestige was increased by the imperial crown, the current of
opinion flowed in his favour. Neither Conrad of Hohenstaufen in Italy
nor his brother Frederick in Germany had succeeded in gaining the
upper hand, in spite of the faction-discords which disturbed Germany
and weakened the royal power. An energetic campaign soon compelled
Frederick of Swabia, and then Conrad, to submit. The Emperor shewed
generosity to them. He left them in possession of their lands and honours
on condition that they accompanied him in his second descent into Italy;
thither the Pope had recalled him, and he himself felt the need of re-
turning in order to establish his authority in Lombardy and to destroy
the power of Roger.
With German affairs thus settled, the Emperor, in a diet held at
Spires at the beginning of 1136, announced his approaching expedition
to Italy, and devoted himself to the preparations. In August he left
Germany, and, by the Brenner Pass, descended into the Valley of Trent with
a great following of soldiers and barons, chief among them Conrad of
Hohenstaufen, who was now high in his favour. Faced by such great
forces, the Lombard cities did not offer any noteworthy resistance, and
Lothar could traverse Upper Italy, meeting no ill reception, and making
the fear of his authority and the advantages of his protection felt both
by hostile and friendly districts.
But, far more than Upper Italy, the Emperor, incited by Venice
and by the Byzantine Court, which were jealous of Roger's growing
power by sea, aimed at the South, where he was ambitious of re-
viving the power of the Empire after the fashion of Otto the Great
and Henry III. Dividing his army into two corps, he entrusted one to
his son-in-law Henry, Duke of Bavaria, who with three thousand men-
at-arms was to restore throughout Tuscany the imperial authority, and


## p. 367 (#413) ############################################

Alliance with Innocent II against the Normans
367
then together with the Pope to pass through the States of the Church.
Meanwhile, the Emperor with the main body was to reach Apulia by the
eastern route through the March of Ancona, and there to meet the other
corps. The two armies both made their strength severely felt on the
districts they traversed, wasting them and compelling them to submit.
Duke Henry met the Pope and marched with him southwards without
touching at Rome, so as not to delay the enterprise against Roger. The
Emperor and the Pope in their victorious career joined forces at Bari at
the end of May 1137, and the submission of Bari decided that of a great
part of Apulia and Calabria. Meanwhile, the ships of Pisa and Amalfi
attacked the coastal cities and especially Salerno, but a dispute which
arose between the Pisans and the Pope and Emperor prevented the capture
of the fortress of Salerno, which remained in the hands of Roger's
garrison. Roger, feeling that he could not repel this impetuous invasion,
had retired to Sicily to await events and the opportune moment. The
Pope and the Emperor, thus become masters of South Italy, thought
of entrusting the duchy of Apulia to Rainulf, Count of Alife, whose
strength and fidelity, they were sure, would hold the duchy against
Roger. But at the moment of investing him there broke out a grave
dissension between Lothar and Innocent, which marked once again how
delicate and difficult the relations between Pope and Emperor always
were, even when they most sought to act in accord. Each of them claimed
the suzerainty over the reconquered lands and the right of investing
Rainulf. It was a bitter dispute which lasted almost a month, and was
finally removed by a kind of simultaneous double investiture. Pope and
Emperor, each holding at the same time the symbolic banner of investi-
ture, gave it together to Rainulf. And this was not the only cause of
dissension which arose at this time, when the interests of the moment
were able to lull, but not to extinguish, the profound antagonisms which
lay hid in the relations between the Empire and the Church.
In September 1137 Innocent and Lothar started on their return.
Re-entering Roman territory, they proceeded to the monastery of Farfa
in Sabina, and Lothar continued his way to Germany. Like many other
imperial expeditions in Italy, that of Lothar did not leave behind it
durable results, but it had served to recall to men's minds the authority
of the Empire, and had secured to the Pope the means of re-entering
Rome and putting an end to the schism. It seemed that Lothar, on his
return to Germany, would be able to extend his power and guide with
confidence the fortunes of the Empire. But those fortunes were about
to be entrusted to other hands. Scarcely had he surmounted the Alps,
when the old Emperor died on his march through the Tyrol on 4 December
1137, and the Empire again lacked a ruler. The fear of a fresh civil war,
and the suspicions which the power of Lothar's son-in-law, Henry of
Bavaria, aroused, smoothed the way for Conrad of Hohenstaufen, who
was elected King of the Romans on 7 March 1138 and on 13 March wsa
CH, XI.


## p. 368 (#414) ############################################

368
Success of Roger II
crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. With him began that powerful dynasty
which was to exercise so unique an influence on the history of Italy.
The abasement of Roger's power had so lamed the strength of the
Pierleoni that the Frangipani, getting the upper hand once more, could
lead back Innocent II and give him again authority in Rome; while the
eloquence of St Bernard aided the Pontiff to blot out the last traces of
the schism and was detaching from the anti-Pope Anacletus the adherents
who were left him. Meantime, scarcely had Lothar gone, before Roger left
Sicily and disembarked his forces at Salerno, bent on recovering his lost
lands. The new Duke of Apulia attacked and routed him; but Roger
did not therefore give up his enterprise. St Bernard, meanwhile, visited
him, and sought to induce him to abandon the anti-Pope; and Roger,
seeing the profit to be gained, proposed a conference of three cardinals
of Innocent and three of Anacletus to discuss the proposals on each side.
The conference took place, and St Bernard succeeded in detaching from
Anacletus his most authoritative and best reputed partisan, Cardinal
Peter Pisano. With this desertion the schism could be said to be at
an end; but the crafty Roger did not yet abandon Anacletus, and,
when the anti-Pope died (25 January 1138), caused the few remaining
schismatic cardinals to elect a new anti-Pope, who took the name of
Victor IV; but he held out only a little time, and was soon obliged to
renounce his pretensions. Roger continued the contest, though avoiding
a pitched battle, and throughout 1138 South Italy was desolated by the
war. Next year, fortune became favourable to the King of Sicily. The
death of Duke Rainulf removed the most formidable of his competitors,
and he could more energetically undertake the recovery of the Regno.
Innocent II, after he had held a council (the Second Lateran), in which
he annulled all the appointments made by Anacletus and with his own
hands stripped the schismatic bishops of the ensigns of their dignity,
marched in arms against Roger, who surrounded him, took him prisoner,
and, shewing him great respect, treated with him for peace. The Pope was
compelled to recognise Roger's royal dignity and to confirm as valid all
the concessions he had obtained from Anacletus. Thus ended the war
between the Pope and the Norman prince; Innocent, like Leo IX, re-
turned humiliated to Rome; there new mutations awaited him.
That tendency which had already raised to such strength the cities
of Lombardy and Central Italy, and had caused municipal life and
liberties to grow so exuberantly in them, began to make itself felt in
Rome also, although the city was under different conditions, which were
not favourable to the development of a potent communal life. Situated
in the midst of a region rendered unhealthy by long neglect and not made
prosperous by agriculture or trade, torn by the factions of a rude and
powerful nobility, in theory the seat of the Empire which still claimed
its rights over it, and lastly the seat of the Popes who considered it as
their patrimony and subject to their rule, Rome could with difficulty


## p. 369 (#415) ############################################

Communal rising at Rome
369
produce a commune which would be capable of rising to the dignity and
strength of an independent State. But the spirit which animated other
cities had also entered into Rome, and made it feel more vividly the
desire of asserting itself, especially when causes of dissension arose between
the citizens and the Pope. In the last years of Innocent this spirit of
independence flamed out more hotly, and caused the beginning of a new
and not inglorious period in the life of the commune.
Little by little, amid the factions which split up the great baronial
families, and under the insecure rule of the Popes, there had gradually
formed in Rome a kind of lesser nobility, which had similar interests to
the people's, and thereby, in alliance with the people, gathered strength.
From it the people acquired a consciousness of itself and of its civil rights.
The re-awakening of the ideas of antiquity, which began to spread widely
in Italy at this time, could not be without influence in Rome, where the
memory of ancient greatness had been a vain but continual regret
through the centuries. The union of the people with the growing minor
nobility had furthered the organising of their forces, of which even the
Popes had sometimes made use.
The Romans had favoured Innocent II's enterprise against Roger, and
when the Pope was compelled to make peace they, in discontent, wished
the Pope to tear up the treaty to which he had been forced to subscribe
when he was a prisoner at the mercy of his conqueror. Innocent did not
agree, and the Romans were irritated; but a graver cause of dissension
became manifest soon afterwards in a question which touched them more
nearly. Among all the surrounding districts, Rome was specially hostile
to Tivoli. In 1141, to subdue this city, the Pope sent the Romans to
besiege it; they were driven back and withdrew from the siege, meditating
revenge. When they returned to the attack, Tivoli surrendered to the
Pope, who concluded peace without consulting Rome, and Rome, aflame
with wrath, demanded of the Pope that he should dismantle and com-
pletely destroy the rival town. The Pope would not yield, and there
followed a revolution which changed the state of the city.
The insurgent Romans, in 1143, proclaimed on the Capitol the
constitution of the republic, “renewed” the Senate', excluding therefrom
the Prefect, the ancient warden of order, and almost all the greater
nobility, although they may have had Jordan Pierleoni, a brother of
Anacletus, as their leader. While they declared that they recognised the
imperial authority which was far away and not too burdensome, they
asserted especially their independence of the Pope, whom they wished to
be despoiled of his temporalities, saying that he ought to live on offerings
1 It is disputed whether the term “Senators,” when it occurs before 1143, denotes
really a consultative assembly or is merely a collective term for the greater nobles.
See L. Halphen, Études sur l'administration de Rome au moyen âge (751-1252),
who decides for the second alternative. The passage in the text has been slightly
revised in view of M. Halphen's work.
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. XI.
24


## p. 370 (#416) ############################################

370
Victory of the commune
and tithes. In these straits Innocent died (24 September 1143); he was
succeeded in the space of a few months first by Celestine II and then by
Lucius II, who wrote to King Conrad, stating his grievances against the
Romans, and asking for his protection. The Romans meanwhile (1144)
raised Jordan Pierleoni to the, perhaps dictatorial, office of Patrician,
a reminiscence of the days of the Crescentii. Lucius even attempted to
take the Capitol by force and overturn the Senate; but he was repulsed,
and one report says that he was wounded with a stone during the
attack. Shortly afterwards he died, worn-out and discouraged, on
15 February 1145.
Terrified amid the armed Romans, the cardinals immediately agreed
on the election of the Pisan Bernard, Abbot of Sant' Anastasio ad Aquas
Salvias, a disciple of St Bernard; he was very apprehensive at his election,
and to the cardinals who chose him he wrote in wonder and fear lest he
should be unequal to the heavy burden in such difficult times. He took
the name of Eugenius III, and shewed as time went on much greater
capacity in the government of the Church than St Bernard had suspected.
Hardly was he elected when he was obliged to quit the city, which rioted
for the recognition of the Senate and the Republic. He was consecrated
in the monastery of Farfa, and then betook himself to Viterbo, while
Rome consolidated its new state and rendered for the moment his return
impossible.
The constitution of the republic did not, however, imply in the mind
of the Romans the cessation of the idea of an imperial and papal Rome,
which to the thought of medieval Christendom was, so to say, the pivot
of the social unity of mankind. In fact, the Romans desired to shake off
the yoke of the Pope's temporal sovereignty, and to live as a free com-
mune; they associated with the idea of independence the vast and
confused memories of the greatness of the Empire in which they placed
their pride, without being aware that the Empire was now German, and
that the glorious name of Rome served to cover the German pretensions
to rule in Italy. These feelings of the Romans found characteristic
expression in a letter which they addressed later to King Conrad, inviting
him to come to Rome to receive the imperial crown, and there to take
up his residence.
“ All that we do," they wrote, “we do for your honour and in fealty
to you. ” And they assured him that they had restored the Senate
in order to exalt the Empire to the rank it held in the times of
Constantine and Justinian, and that they had destroyed the houses and
towers of the barons of the city who were preparing to resist the
Empire in alliance with the Pope and the King of Sicily. None the less
the Romans soon began to experience the difficulty of realising their
intentions. The Pope found aid in the jealous distrust inspired by
the new-born republic, which desired to extend its supremacy outside
Rome and to dominate its neighbours. The imperilled cities round, and


## p. 371 (#417) ############################################

L
Papal appeal to Germany
371
the high Roman nobility threatened in its possessions in the Campagna,
whence it drew its strength, all joined the papal side. The city was
obliged to yield to their united forces, receive the Pope anew within its
walls, restore the authority of the Prefect, and recognise the sovereignty
of the Church. Thus at the close of 1145 the Pope could re-enter Rome
and there celebrate Christmas with solemn pomp; yet he, too, had not
the strength to maintain himself. In spite of the concessions it had made,
the new republic remained firmly seated on the Capitol, and the authority
of the Senate continued to hold its own in face of the Pope. New dis-
sensions soon broke out, and Eugenius, unable to make his will prevail,
was constrained after a few months to abandon the city a second time,
and repair again to Viterbo, whence he betook himself to Pisa.
This second exile shewed clearly that Eugenius could not hope that
his throne in Rome would be stable without Conrad's help; and so he
would have wished the king to hasten to Italy for the imperial coronation.
But the king was preoccupied with German affairs, and, without refusing
point-blank, avoided giving a definite reply; he continued to defer it,
unmoved even by the fiery appeal of St Bernard, who exhorted him to go
to defend the Church against the Roman people, a people accursed and
riotous, incapable of rightly measuring their own strength, who in their
folly and rage had attempted a great sacrilege. In spite of the exhorta-
tions of Bernard, who warned him not to listen to opposite counsels,
Conrad, who had his own plans with regard to Italian affairs, continued
to temporise. He aimed at linking his expedition to Italy with an
entente with Constantinople, and perhaps too he was not wholly grieved
at seeing the Pope entangled in difficulties, and reduced to such conditions
as rendered the royal position towards him now far more favourable than
had been that of Lothar towards Honorius and Innocent.
Meanwhile, the breach between the Romans and the Pope became
ever wider and deeper. A remarkable man had appeared among them to
fire them with his own passionate ardour for citizen liberty and the
reform of the Church. This was Arnold of Brescia, who for some time
1
both in Italy and beyond the Alps had in perfervid discourses championed
new ideas, full of peril according to many, on the state of the Church
and its reform. The renascence of philosophical ideas and of classical
culture, which developed so swiftly and widely in Europe at the dawn of
the twelfth century, stirred in men's minds, and incited them to debate
problems and intellectual novelties which disquieted them and alarmed
the guardians of the recognised religious and social doctrines. After
early studies in Italy Arnold had gone to Paris and become a disciple of
Abelard; he had been his devoted follower, and had shared his disasters
with a tenacious faith and a firmness of character greater than his
master's. But an apostolic fervour which summoned him to action was
stronger in him than Abelard's spirit of subtle enquiry. Perhaps, living
among the people as he did, he loved and welcomed their favour; but he
CH, x.
24-2


## p. 372 (#418) ############################################

372
Arnold of Brescia
felt to the core a holy zeal for liberty and the purification of the Church,
and persecutions and obstacles only inflamed it the more. Pious, pure,
and austere, his greatest adversaries bore unanimous witness to the
sanctity of his life, while they combated his doctrines and his actions.
“Would that he were of sound doctrine," exclaimed St Bernard, “as he
is austere in life! A man who neither eats nor drinks, he only, like the
Devil, hungers and thirsts for the blood of souls. " It does not appear
that his eloquence was turned against dogmas. Only one contemporary,
Otto of Freising, relates an uncertain rumour, that he did not think
rightly concerning the sacrament of the altar and infant baptism; and
the story of his last hours could perhaps raise a doubt on his doctrine
with regard to confession. Rather than at doctrine he aimed at discipline.
He vehemently attacked the clergy, denied to clerics and monks the right
to possess property, and to bishops the right to the regulia; he bitterly
denounced the way of life of the ecclesiastics. In the Lateran Council
of 1139 Innocent II had blamed him, and condemned him to silence.
Forced to leave Brescia, he had returned to France, and had been an
unshakeable defender of his master Abelard in opposition to St Bernard,
who became his enemy.
When Abelard yielded before his mighty adversary, Arnold continued
the struggle at Sainte-Geneviève among poor students, and probably
mingled with his teaching violent invectives against the corruption of
the clergy. He could not resist for long in France, but betook himself
to Zurich, where he found new followers and new persecutions, and thence
joined the train of Cardinal Guido, legate in Germany, who protected
him. He returned with the cardinal to Italy, and at Viterbo saw
Eugenius III, who absolved him and prescribed as his penance a pilgrimage
to the graves of the Apostles and to the churches of Rome.
The place was not adapted for the hoped-for repentance of Arnold;
the Pope had sent fire to a volcano. At that time Rome was both the
most fertile soil in which he could sow the seed of his doctrines, and
itself a stimulus and inspiration for the thoughts which dominated his
life. The heights of the Capitoline hill, sacred to history, and the ruins
of the Forum, the ancient churches and the graves of the martyrs in the
catacombs, must have spoken a mysterious language to the soul of Arnold
of Brescia, and have called him to his mission with energy renewed. The
republican movement and the Patarine traditions diffused among the
people in Lombardy found their consecration in Rome from the history
told by her ruins, and from the churches and sacred memories of Rome
the spirit and the humility of primitive Christianity seemed to ask of
God a reform to free the Papacy from worldly interests and mundane
pomp. The fervid, vehement words of the Brescian apostle fascinated the
Romans, ever ready listeners to eloquence which evoked the memories
of their past greatness. The republic was strengthened by him, and he
had a large share in the counsels and regulation of the city. To the


## p. 373 (#419) ############################################

Proclamation of the Second Crusade
373
Senate already constituted there was added, in name at least, an equestrian
order' probably composed of the lesser nobility and richer citizens; and
thus there was created at Rome, in imitation of the Lombard republics,
a nucleus of picked militia ; the Capitol was fortified; and the constitu-
tion of Rome became in substance similar to that of the other Italian
communes.
Rome's example was followed in the surrounding territory: other
communes began to be organised in the Patrimony of the Church, and
rendered the position of the Pope with regard to Rome ever more
difficult. But for the moment the Papacy was obliged to direct its
solicitude elsewhere. The Muslim power, which had been checked in its
career by the First Crusade, again appeared threatening and awoke
anxiety in Europe, and with the anxiety almost a fever of desire for a new
crusade. The discords between the Christian rulers in the East, the close
neighbours of the Musulmans, had borne their natural fruit, and opened
to the Saracens the way to the re-conquest of the lands torn from them
by the First Crusade. Zangi, a resolute and bold Muslim warrior, led
the attack, to which the Christians could not oppose an efficacious
barrier. When Edessa fell into Zangi's hands at the end of 1144, a bul-
wark was lost without which all the Christian Levant was placed in grave
peril. It seemed evident that, if Antioch, too, was taken, Jerusalem itself
would not be safe, and perhaps all the work of the First Crusade would
totter and crumble to nothing. The weak and discordant Christian
princes turned anxiously to the West for aid; they sounded the alarm
and called Europe to the defence of Christendom. France more especially
felt the force of this appeal, and shewed herself inclined to respond
to it with the same élan as to that for the First Crusade. Eugenius
received at Viterbo messages from the Levant, and understood that now
was the moment for him to imitate Urban II's example, and summon
Christendom to the counter-attack. He was the more willing to do so
because he hoped that the movement he was about to initiate might serve
also to bring the Eastern Churches closer to Rome. He turned first to
France, where the king, Louis VII, and his people were easily gained
over, although his chief and wisest minister, Abbot Suger, was against
the enterprise. The Crusade was decided on, and the king took the
Cross. The Pope, involved in his struggle with the Romans, could not
go at once to France, and entrusted to St Bernard the preaching of
the Crusade. Convinced that he spoke by divine inspiration, the Saint
infused in others his own conviction, and the enthusiasm he evoked sur-
passed all expectation; it seemed a miracle. “Cities and castles are
emptied,” he wrote to Eugenius III, "and there is not left one man
1 Does this classic name (Otto Frising.