Germany: The Revived Monarchy of Frederick Barbarossa

Theoretically, Henry V and his successors were kings of Germany and Italy, and at Rome they received the crown and title of emperor from the popes as well. But the Investiture Conflict (See “The Gregorian Reform and the Investiture Conflict, 1075–1122” in Chapter 10) reduced their power and authority. Meanwhile, the German princes strengthened their position, enjoying near independence as they built castles on their properties and established control over whole territories. When they elected a new king, the princes made sure that he would give them new lands and powers. The German kings were in a difficult position: they had to balance the many conflicting interests of their royal and imperial offices, their families, and the German princes, and they had to contend with the increasing power of the papacy and the Italian communes. All this prevented the consolidation of power under a strong German monarch during the first half of the twelfth century.

During the Investiture Conflict, the two sides (imperial and papal) were represented by two noble families. Leading the imperial party was the Staufer, or Hohenstaufen, clan; opposing them were the Welfs. (Two later Italian factions, the Ghibellines and the Guelphs, corresponded, respectively, to the Hohenstaufens and the Welfs.) The enmity between these families was legendary, and warfare between the groups raged long after the Concordat of Worms in 1122. Decades of constant battles exhausted all parties, who began to long for peace. In an act of rare unanimity, they elected Frederick I (Barbarossa). In Frederick (r. 1152–1190) they seemed to have a candidate who could end the strife: his mother was a Welf, his father a Staufer. Contemporary accounts of the king’s career represented Frederick in the image of Christ as the cornerstone that joined two houses and reconciled enemies.

Frederick’s very appearance impressed his contemporaries—the name Barbarossa referred to his red-blond hair and beard. But beyond appearances, Frederick impressed those around him by what they called his firmness. He affirmed royal rights, even when he handed out duchies and allowed others to name bishops, because in return for these political powers Frederick required the princes to concede formally and publicly that they held their rights and territories from him as their lord. By making them his vassals, although with nearly royal rights within their principalities, Frederick defined the princes’ subordinate relationship to the German king.

As the king of Germany, Frederick had the traditional right to claim the imperial crown. When, in 1155, he marched to Rome to be crowned emperor, the fledgling commune there protested that it alone had the right to give him the crown. Frederick interrupted them, asserting that the glory of Rome, together with its crown, came to him by right of conquest. He was equally insistent with the pope, who wrote to tell him that Rome belonged to St. Peter. Frederick replied that his imperial title gave him rights over the city. In part, Frederick was influenced by the revival of Roman law—the laws of Theodosius and Justinian—that was taking place in the schools of Italy. In part, too, he was convinced of the sacred—not just secular—origins of the imperial office. Frederick called his empire sacer (“sacred”), asserting that it was in its own way as precious, worthwhile, and God-given as the church. (See “Document 11.1: Frederick I’s Reply to the Romans.”).

Frederick buttressed this high view of his imperial right with worldly power. He married Beatrice of Burgundy, whose vast estates in Burgundy and Provence enabled him to establish a powerful political and territorial base centered in Swabia (today southwestern Germany). From Swabia, Frederick looked south to Italy, with its wealthy cities. Swabia and northern Italy together could give Frederick a compact and centrally located territory.

Nevertheless, Frederick’s ambitions in Italy were problematic. Since the Investiture Conflict, the emperor had ruled Italy in name only. The communes of the northern cities guarded their liberties jealously, while the pope considered Italy his own sphere of influence. Frederick’s territorial base just north of Italy threatened those interests (see Map 11.1).

Despite the opposition of the cities and the pope, Frederick was determined to conquer northern Italy, which he managed to do by 1158. Adopting an Italian solution for governing the communes—appointing outsiders as magistrates—Frederick appointed his own men to these powerful positions. But that was where Frederick made a mistake. He chose German officials who lacked a sense of Italian communal traditions. Their heavy hand created enormous resentment. By 1167, most of the cities of northern Italy had joined with the pope to form the Lombard League against Frederick. Defeated by the league at the battle of Legnano in 1176, Frederick made peace and withdrew most of his forces from Italy. The battle marked the triumph of the cities over the crown in Italy, which would not have a centralized government until the nineteenth century; its political history would instead be that of its various regions and their dominant cities.

Frederick was the victim of traditions that were rapidly becoming outmoded. He based much of his rule in Germany on the bond of lord and vassal at the very moment when rulers elsewhere were relying less on such personal ties and more on salaried officials. He lived up to the meaning of emperor, with all its obligations to rule Rome and northern Italy, when other leaders were consolidating their territorial rule bit by bit. In addition, as “universal” emperor, he did not recognize the importance of local pride, language, customs, and traditions; he tried to rule Italian communes with his own men from Germany, and he failed.

Frederick also had problems in Germany, where he had to contend with princes of near-royal status who acted as independent rulers of their principalities, though acknowledging Frederick as their feudal lord. One of the most powerful was Henry the Lion (c. 1130–1195), who was duke of Saxony and Bavaria, which gave him important bases in both the north and the south of Germany. A confident and aggressive ruler, Henry dominated his territory by investing bishops (usurping the role of the emperor as outlined in the Concordat of Worms), collecting dues from his estates, and exercising judicial rights over his territories. Henry also actively extended his rule, especially in Slavic regions, pushing northeast past the Elbe River to reestablish dioceses and to build the commercial city of Lübeck (today in northern Germany). He was lord of many vassals and ministerials (people of unfree status but high prestige). He organized a staff of clerics and ministerials to collect taxes and tolls and to write up his legal acts.

Yet like kings, princes could fall. Henry’s growing power so threatened other princes and even Frederick that in 1179 Frederick called Henry to the king’s court for violating the peace. When Henry chose not to appear, Frederick exercised his authority as Henry’s lord and charged him with violating his duty as a vassal. Because Henry refused the summons to court and avoided serving his lord in Italy, Frederick condemned him, confiscated his holdings, and drove him out of Germany.

However, successfully challenging one recalcitrant prince/vassal meant negotiating costly deals with the others, since their support was vital. Frederick wanted to retain Henry’s duchy for himself, as Philip Augustus had managed to do with Normandy. But Frederick was not powerful enough to do so and was forced to divide and distribute it to the supporters he had relied on to enforce his decrees against Henry.