Part 27 (1/2)

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, citizens.h.i.+p 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).