The Kingdom in the Sun (35 page)

Cardinal Boso Breakspear, Adrian's nephew and biographer, tells us that at this point the German knights thronging St Peter's raised so deafening a cheer that it seemed as though a very thunderbolt had fallen from heaven; but there was no time for any further celebration. As soon as the ceremony was done the Emperor, with the imperial crown still on his head, rode back to his camp outside the walls, his huge retinue following on foot. The Pope meanwhile took refuge in the Vatican to await developments.

It was still only nine o'clock in the morning; and the Senate was assembling on the Capitol to decide how best to prevent the coronation when the news arrived that it had already taken place. Furious to find that they had been outwitted and outmanoeuvred, they sprang to arms; soon a huge mob was pressing across the Ponte S. Angelo into the Leonine City while another, having crossed the river further downstream at the island, advanced northwards through Trastevere. The day was growing hotter. The Germans, tired by their forced march through the night and the excitement of the past few hours,

¹
This comprised that part of Rome on the right bank of the Tiber, including the Vatican, St Peter's and the Castel Sant' Angelo, which was fortified by Pope Leo IV in the ninth century, immediately after the sack of the city by the Saracens.

wanted to relax—to sleep and to celebrate. Instead, they received the order to prepare at once for battle. Had not their Emperor sworn, that very morning and before them all, to defend the Church of Christ ? Already its safety was threatened. For the second time that day Frederick entered Rome, but he wore his coronation robes no longer. This time he had his armour on.

All afternoon and evening the battle raged between the Emperor of the Romans and his subjects; night had fallen before the imperial troops had driven the last of the insurgents back across the bridges. Losses had been heavy on both sides. For the German casualties we have no reliable figures; but Otto of Freising reports that among the Romans almost a thousand were slain or drowned in the Tiber, and another six hundred taken captive. As for the wounded, he had given up trying to count them. The Senate had paid a high price for its arrogance.

And yet, if the Romans had revealed themselves as poor diplomats, they had at least proved brave fighters; and it must be admitted that they had good grounds for resentment. Previous Emperors arriving for their consecration had been accustomed to show the city and its institutions at least some marks of respect— swearing obedience to its laws and submitting themselves to the votes and acclamations of its people. Frederick had done none of these things. He had ignored the Romans entirely—and he had done so at a moment in their history when their Commune had given them a new sense of civic pride, a new awareness of their past greatness and the splendour of their heritage. To argue that they had treated him with singular tactlessness and thus to a large extent brought their punishment on themselves was neither here nor there; Frederick's initial treatment of Pope Adrian at Sutri hardly suggested that even in other circumstances he would have been much more amenable.

The Emperor too had bought his crown dearly. His victory had not even gained him entrance into the ancient city, for the sun rose the next morning to show all the Tiber bridges blocked and the gates of the city barricaded. Neither he nor his army was prepared for a siege; the heat of the Italian summer, which for a century and a half had consistently undermined the morale of successive invading armies, was once again beginning to take its toll with outbreaks of malaria and dysentery among his men. As Otto feelingly describes it, 'all the air round about became heavy with the mists that rose from the swamps nearby and from the caverns and ruined places about the City: an atmosphere deadly and noxious for mortals to breathe.' The only sensible course was to withdraw, and—since the Vatican was clearly no longer safe for the Papacy—to take Pope and Curia with him. On
1
9
June he struck camp again and led his army up into the Sabine Hills. A month later he was heading back towards Germany, leaving Adrian powerless at Tivoli.

Although the Pope had been careful, after his first meeting, to allow no open breach with the Emperor, he had good reason to feel resentful. At considerable risk to his own safety he had performed the coronation required of him; he had received little in return. Since leaving Rome he had done his utmost to persuade Frederick to keep to his original plan and march without further ado against William of Sicily; but, though Frederick personally would have been willing enough, his ailing German barons would have none of it. Promises were readily given to return in the near future, when a healthier and more numerous imperial force would bring Romans and Sicilians alike to heel; meanwhile the Pope was left, isolated and in exile, to get on as best he could.

The story of the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa is almost told, but not quite; for, apart from the Emperor who was crowned and the Pope who crowned him, there is a third character who, although he was not even present in Rome on that dreadful day, influenced the course of events as much as either of them. Arnold of Brescia was one of the first of those astonishing popular leaders whom Italy has thrown up at intervals all through her history—fanatics of genius who, by the sheer magic of their personalities, gain absolute and unquestioned domination over their fellow-men. Sometimes, as with Arnold himself or with Savonarola three hundred years later, this domination has a spiritual basis; sometimes, as with Cola di Rienzo, it is inspired
by
a historic sense of mission; occasionally, as Mussolini showed, it can be political through and through. One characteristic, however, these men have all had in common. All have failed, and have paid for their failure with their lives.

No record exists to tell us exactly when or where Arnold suffered his execution. We know only the manner in which he met his death. Condemned by a spiritual tribunal on charges of heresy and rebellion, he remained firm to the end and walked calmly to the scaffold without a trace of fear; as he knelt to make his last confession, we read that the executioners themselves could not restrain their tears. They hanged him none the less; then they cut him down and burned the body. Finally, in order to ensure that no relics should be left for veneration by the people, they threw the ashes into the Tiber.

For a martyr, misguided or not, there could be no greater honour.

10

THE GREEK OFFENSIVE

The Emperor Manuel often held that it was an easy matter for him to win over the peoples of the East by gifts of money or by force of arms, but that over those of the West he could never count on gaining a similar advantage; for they are formidable in numbers, indomitable in pride, cruel in character, rich in possessions and inspired by an inveterate hatred for the Empire.

Nicetas Choniates,
History of Manuel Comnenus,
VII, i

O
f
the many German armies which, in the past century and a half, had marched down into South Italy to restore imperial power in the peninsula, none had ever remained there more than a few months. The Emperors who led them had soon discovered that even if this enervating, pestiferous land were technically theirs, they for their part could never belong to it. Here they would always be strangers, and unwelcome strangers at that; and their men, toiling along in their heavy homespun under a torrid Apulian sky, sickened by the unaccustomed food and plagued, even more than they knew, by the clouds of insects that whined incessantly about their heads, felt much the same. Nearly all, both the leaders and the led, longed for the day when they would once again be able to see a firm mountain barrier rising between themselves and the scene of their sufferings.

Frederick Barbarossa was an exception. He would have been genuinely glad to remain in the South and deal with William of Sicily if he could only have carried his knights with him; but they were resolved to return at once to Germany, and he knew that he must not impose his will too far. This enforced withdrawal saddened and frustrated him; and it can have been little consolation that when he reached Ancona—after the largely gratuitous destruction of

Spoleto on the way—he was met by three emissaries from Constantinople, led by the erstwhile governor of Thessalonica, Michael Palaeologus, bringing him rich presents from their master and promising him considerable subsidies if he would change his mind. Frederick kept them waiting some time for his answer; even at this late stage it was worth making one last attempt to inject a little of his own spirit into his followers. But the German barons had had enough; and after a few days the Emperor was obliged to admit to the Greeks that there was nothing he could do.

Palaeologus and his companions were not unduly upset
by
the news. Strategically it might have been useful to have the German army fighting their battles for them; diplomatically, however, the situation would be very much simpler without the involvement of the Western Empire, particularly as there was by now no shortage of other, more manageable allies closer to hand—King William's rebellious Apulian vassals. They too had put their trust in Frederick and had been disappointed by his hasty departure; but they felt no special ties of loyalty to him any more than to anyone else. Now that he had let them down, they were perfectly ready to accept subsidies and support from Constantinople instead.

All that year, Apulian resistance to the new King of Sicily had been stiffening. This can partly be attributed to the expectation of Frederick Barbarossa's appearance on the scene in what was hoped to be fire and wrath; but much of it was also due to the spirit and determination of a new leader—Robert de Bassonville, Count of Loritello. Robert was the very prototype of the dissatisfied Norman aristocrat.
As
first cousin of the King—he was the son of Roger IPs sister Judith—he considered himself exceptionally qualified for high office; Hugo Falcandus even suggests, with his usual malice, that Roger had considered making him his successor instead of William. Thus he viciously resented the pre-eminence of Maio and the Emir's continued discrimination against the landed nobility. The gift of the distant County of Loritello, which William had bestowed on him at the time of his own accession, had done nothing to mollify him; almost at once, he had begun stirring up discontent among the neighbouring barons. William for his part cherished no delusions about Robert's loyalty. Already in the early spring of
11
55,

on his first visit to Salerno as King, he had refused to receive him into his presence; and on his return to Sicily soon after Easter he had sent instructions to his Viceroy, Asclettin, to have the Count of Loritello arrested forthwith. Robert, however, had escaped to the Abruzzi, where he had spent the summer gathering his forces—and where he now heard, for the first time, of Michael Palaeologus's arrival in the peninsula.

The two met at Viesti, and at once agreed to join forces. Each was able to provide just what the other lacked. Palaeologus had a fleet of ten ships, seemingly limitless funds and the power to call when necessary on further reinforcements from across the Adriatic. Robert could claim the support of the majority of the local barons, together with the effective control of a considerable length of coast—a vital requirement if the Byzantine lines of communication were to be adequately maintained. By contrast, the royalist army under Asclettin was far away beyond the Apennines—powerless to oppose any swift, surprise strike in northern Apulia.

And so, in the late summer of 11
5 5
, Robert of Loritello and Michael Palaeologus struck. Their first attack was directed against Bari. Until its capture by Robert Guiscard in
1071,
this city had been the capital of Byzantine Italy and the last Greek stronghold in the peninsula. The majority of its citizens, being Greek, resented the government of Palermo—particularly since Roger had withdrawn several of their ancient privileges after the last Apulian rising—and looked gratefully towards any opportunity of breaking free from it. A group of them opened the gates to the attackers; and though the Sicilian garrison fought bravely from the old citadel and the church of St Nicholas, they were soon obliged to surrender and to watch while the Bariots fell on the citadel—by now the symbol of Sicilian domination—and despite Palaeologus's efforts to stop them, razed it to the ground.