Wars of Lombard League

At issue: Autonomy of the North Italian cities within the Holy Roman Empire

Date: February/March, 1167-June 25, 1183

Location: Kingdom of Lombardy

Combatants: Lombard League and Pope Alexander III vs. Holy Roman Empire forces

Principal commanders:Holy Roman Empire, German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (c. 1123–1190), Rainald of Dassel (c. 1118–1167); Lombard League, rectors

Principal battles: Carcano, Legnano

Result: Legitimacy of the Lombard League, the free government of its cities under consuls, and their retention of the royal revenue, the regalia

Background

In the kingdom of Lombardy, German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa enforced the collection of the regalia, or royal revenue, which the cities had been keeping for themselves. Although the cities had agreed to the revenue’s collection at a congress, the Diet of Roncaglia, in 1158, the harsh manner in which it was gathered by the imperial chancellor for Italy, Rainald of Dassel, bred resentment. The city of Milan resisted, defeating the emperor when he and a small group of followers became separated from his main force at the castle of Carcano, east of Como, in August, 1160. Frederick destroyed the city and dispersed its inhabitants in March, 1162. The Papacy feared similar royal repercussions in the lands of the Catholic Church, leased in part to another German house rivaling Frederick’s, the Welf house. At the death of an accommodating pope, Adrian IV, the anti-imperialists elected a new pope, Alexander III, and the imperialists adhered between 1159 and 1178 to three successive antipopes.

Action

Early in 1164, Verona, Vicenza, and Padua agreed to resist the German (Holy Roman) emperor. In 1166 this Veronese League blocked Frederick’s return to Italy at the Chiusa di Verona. Frederick, in revenge, descended the Val Camonica and devastated the countryside between the Alps and the Po River. In February-March, 1167, Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Mantua, and Lodi allied in defense in the Lombard League. On April 7, this league, growing with further members, met at Pontida, between Milan and Bergamo, and resolved to rebuild Milan. Frederick took up the challenge by installing his antipope, Victor III, in Rome, but a plague destroyed his army and many of its leaders, including Rainald, and the Welf heir. Frederick escaped to Germany.

In the absence of Frederick, the Lombard League expanded throughout the Po Valley, obtaining the adherence of major vassals of the emperor such as Marquis Obizo Malaspina. It absorbed the Veronese League in December, 1167, and gave itself a constitution with rectors at a congress at Lodi in May, 1168. By then, a new fortress-town named in honor of the pope, Alessandria, had been created in order to block Frederick’s entry into Italy from his wife Beatrix’s Burgundian kingdom. Genoa and Montferrat had remained imperial under pressure from Christian of Mainz, Frederick’s lieutenant in Italy. Marquis William of Montferrat, too close to Alessandria for comfort, was besieged in his castle of Montebello and on June 19, 1172, forced to adhere to the league.

By 1174, Frederick had gathered a new army to return to Italy. He destroyed Susa, forced Asti to surrender, and besieged Alessandria. Christian, after exploits in the south and central areas, attacked the Bolognese castle of San Casciano. The league protected Bologna and made Frederick raise the Siege of Alessandria. Frederick had met his match and opened negotiations for a truce and possible peace. However, the negotiations, formalized at Montebello on April 16, 1175, broke down, with the emperor hoping to act once more from strength if only he could obtain reinforcements from Germany. A year later, he met these reinforcements and new Italian supporters on Lake Como to lead them to a union with his troops at Pavia. However, the Milanese prevented the union, in a manner similar to that employed at Carcano, by destroying his reinforcements at Legnano (May 29, 1176). Frederick asked Alexander III to mediate, recognizing him as the true pope in the Treaty of Anagni in October, 1176. The result was the truce agreement with all parties at Venice in July, 1177, with a permanent peace to be concluded within seven years. This was the Treaty of Constance, on Lake Constance, of June 25, 1183.

Aftermath

All parties gained. The Church gained unity, the cities of the league their rights, revenues, and a permanent peace organization, the emperor freedom to pursue the Welf inheritance in central lands and the Norman succession in southern Italy and Sicily. Frederick’s son Henry married Constance, the heiress of the Norman kingdom, in the cathedral of Milan in 1186.

Milestones in the Lombard League Wars

Bibliography

Carson, Thomas, ed. Barbarossa in Italy. New York: Italica, 1994.

The Holy Roman Empire. Documentary. Coronet, 1961.

Otto I, Bishop of Freising. The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.