to desert his imperial duties at a time when Germany was distracted by fierce feuds, and his own claim to the throne was hardly admitted by its turbulent vassals. St. Bernard sternly demanded how he would answer at the great day of judgment for his dereliction of this greater duty? The trembling emperor acknowledged the voice of God, girt on the cross, collected the strength of the empire to leave their whitening bones on the plains and in the defiles of Asia Minor,-disdained to follow, with the miserable remains of his troops, the more prudently conducted army of the French king--and returned at length to Europe discomfited and fallen in the estimation of all Christendom. His successor, Frederick Barbarossa, after reducing Germany to order and obedience, and waging at least a gallant, if not a successful war, in favour of what he considered the rights of the empire in Italy, perished in a remote river in Asia. Frederick II., who probably in his heart, at least in his riper years, disdained the enthusiasm with which the predominant feeling of the time forced him to comply, was excommunicated for not taking the cross-excommunicated for not setting out to the Holy Land-excommunicated for setting outexcommunicated for returning, after having made an advantageous treaty with the Mahometans. During his whole reign he vainly struggled to burst the fetters which were thus wound around him, and riveted not merely by the remorseless hostility of his spiritual antagonists, but by the irresistible spirit of the age. The universal sentiment assisted in more firmly closing the links, and contemplated, with awe-struck satisfaction, the inextricable bondage. On this subject, at least, there was no assumption, no abuse of authority, however extravagant, which was not ratified by the trembling assent of Christendom.

The crusades, therefore, are legitimately connected with the history of the Hohenstaufeu-more particularly as our author has proposed also to give a view of their times. Still, the length at which he has related not merely the successive invasions of Asia, but even the whole history of the kingdom of Jerusalem, detains us far too long from the main object of interest:-the porch is too large for the building: the aisles which run parallel to the stately nave, at almost equal height, mar the unity of the design. The proportions would have been much better preserved, if this prefatory and subsidiary matter had been compressed into a narrower relative compass; if M. von Raumer had passed over more rapidly—or left to the very able and elaborate History of the Crusades, by his cotemporary, Wilken-those expeditions to the Holy Land in which the House of Swabia were not immediately engaged. The real greatness of the Hohenstaufen commenced with Frederick Barbarossa. Nothing is more remarkable than the supe

riority

riority of this family, in an age of fierce domestic feud, to the base jealousies and personal interests of narrower minds. To the greatness of the house, primogeniture would willingly sacrifice its rights, and even parental affection its attachment to its own offspring. As Frederick, Duke of Swabia, had quietly ceded his pretensions to the imperial throne in favour of his brother Conrad, so Conrad preferred to his own child—as yet, it is true, almost an infant-the more commanding claims of the son of his brother, Frederick Barbarossa. Germany admitted the superiority of Barbarossa by an act of rare occurrence- —an unanimous and uncontested election; the only difficulty which arose was from a haughty speech, attributed by rumour to the Duke of Swabia,That he would wear the crown, though all the empire should be opposed to his election.' The person and the character of Frederick are thus described by M. von Raumer :

Frederick was of middle height and well-formed, his hair light, cropped close and curled only over his forehead, his complexion fair, his cheeks ruddy, his beard of a reddish hue-on which account the Italians called him Barbarossa. He had fine teeth, well-formed lips, blue eyes; his look, calm but piercing, betrayed the conscious strength of character. His step was firm, his voice clear, his demeanour manly and dignified; his dress neither studied nor negligent. He was inferior to none in the chase and in bodily exercises, to none in hilarity at the feast; but his liberality never degenerated into extravagant splendour, nor his convivial merriment into excess. His knowledge at that period, with the turn of his mind to public affairs, could not be very extensive; yet he understood Latin, and read the Roman authors with pleasure and diligence. Notwithstanding his great military talents, he considered war only as the means for a higher object-peace. He showed himself formidable and vigorous to his adversaries, placable towards the repentant, condescending to his own followers; but neither in pleasure nor in distress did he lose his dignity and self-command. His judgment seldom betrayed him— his memory scarcely ever. He listened willingly to counsel; but decided, as becomes a sovereign, for himself. Reverence towards holy places, respect for the clergy as interpreters of the word of God, might be considered as the common qualities of the age: few, however, knew so well to discriminate from these the overweening pretensions of the church, and to oppose them with such energy. He considered the impartial administration of the law as the first duty of a king; implicit obedience that of a subject. But what gave the chief strength to his will and to his sway was, that he undertook nothing which was not, in his firm conviction, according to justice and to law; and, what in itself is a proof of ability, he looked back upon the great examples of former times with a profound sense of admiration. He had, in particular, taken and openly declared Charlemagne to be his model: striving to imitate him, he must have endeavoured to fix and

to

to establish throughout the whole empire the rights of the church, the welfare of the state, the inviolability of the law. Yet he himself, in later years, when he communicated information concerning his own, by no means undistinguished, career to his worthy relative, the historian Otto of Freisingen, added, in language far superior to the frivolous vanity of little minds, and almost in a melancholy tone,"In comparison with what was done by those most distinguished men of former times, ours are rather shadows than deeds—(magis dici possunt umbræ quanı facta)."

If there appear somewhat of a Ghibelline tinge in this highdrawn character of the emperor, the historian of the Italian republics, not likely to be partially inclined to the great oppressor of Lombard freedom, does, on his side, ample justice to the lofty character of Barbarossa. But in this splendid design of reconstructing the empire of Charlemagne, the German emperor forgot to consider the revolution which centuries had been slowly working in the state of Europe. Charlemagne possessed the power, and condescended to adorn his power with the title, of Emperor of the West. His object was to blend together the sacred reminiscences of the past with the barbaric energy and chivalrous enterprise of his own age. But to the Cæsars of the twelfth century remained proud titles, indefinite pretensions, the shadow, but not the substance, of imperial dignity. In Germany-the elective head of an untractable feudal aristocracy-the Emperor's rights were still more dubious, and his authority still more precarious, over the free cities of Italy;-while, instead of lying a prostrate fugitive at the feet of the master of the West, and imploring his succour against his own domestic enemies, the Pope stood the resistless and invulnerable head of the hostile league, wielding an equal, a superior power, which schism could not weaken, nor discomfiture subdue. In fact, not all the wealth and independence, the bravery or the endurance, of the Italian cities, could have offered a permanent or successful resistance-distracted as they were by civil animosities, and opposed to each other with hatred stronger even than the love of liberty-unless the authority of the church had been allied with the rising freedom of northern Italy. The contest of Barbarossa with the young republics of Lombardythe pride, the siege, the ruin, the resurrection of Milan from her ashes to still more haughty independence, are so well known to most readers from the eloquent pages of Sismondi, that we shall only observe, that the narrative of Von Raumer, from its spirit, freedom, and perspicuity, still rivets the attention, even with that of the French historian fresh upon the memory.

We shall confine ourselves to a few illustrations of the manner in which the papal power mingled itself in all these transactions,

and

and select some circumstances characteristic of the age. The only English Pope, Hadrian IV.-by name Nicholas Breakspeare, the son of a poor ecclesiastic of St. Alban's-was elected to the chair of St. Peter, soon after Frederick's first expedition into Italy. Though Frederick sacrificed the bold reformer and republican, Arnold of Brescia, to the fears of the pope, yet the papal power was obscured for a time before the warlike emperor at the head of his victorious Germans. When Rome submitted to his authority, the sovereignty of the pope was altogether passed over in disdainful silence. To the pretensions of the Roman people to their ancient independence, Frederick haughtily replied by reminding them, that the old Roman virtue, as well as the old Roman power, had passed to himself and his German successors; he condescended to speak of Rome as the capital of his empire, but he called her citizens in explicit terms his vassals, aud himself their lord and master. The popes were wise enough to discern the proper seasons for advancing or suppressing in silence their lofty pretensions. Hadrian made no remonstrance, for he stood in need of the imperial protection; and till the return of Frederick to Germany, the pliant pontiff submitted to the momentary superiority assumed by the temporal sovereign. No sooner, however, had he secured an ally in the Norman King of Sicily, than the old question relating to the interference of the temporal power in ecclesiastical appointments, and the investiture of the bishops of Germany, broke out in all its former violence. Frederick had resumed the right, abandoned by his predecessor Lothaire; but the quarrel was brought to a crisis by a whimsical accident, arising out of the employment of classical Latin by the pope's chancery, which was understood according to the barbarous dialect of the age by the rude German nobles. In his remonstrance, Hadrian reminded the emperor of the benefits which he had conferred upon him during his residence in Italy. The Germans understood the word beneficium according to its feudal meaning—a fief, and construed the passage as though the pope had declared the empire a fief of the Roman see. The Diet burst out into indignant uproar. The cardinal Roland, one of the legates, instead of allaying the storm by explaining away the obnoxious term, exclaimed, 'Of whom then does the emperor hold the empire, if not of our lord the pope?' Otto of Wittelsbach, the Palatine of Bavaria, sprung from his seat with his sword drawn, and the legate, but for the interposition of the emperor, would have paid dear for his neglect of the wisdom of the serpent.' But from this time the breach was irreparable; however it might be suspended by temporary treaties, or allayed by seeming acts of sincere reconciliation, the incompatible pretensions of the conflicting authorities could only be settled by the

final triumph of one. Frederick appealed to the ecclesiastical as well as to the temporal princes of the empire. Von Raumer does not give the emphatic clause in his letters by which he repelled this last arrogant claim of the Pontiff- As by the election of the princes we hold the kingdom, and the empire of God alone; as St. Peter commands all persons to "fear God and honour the king," whoever shall say that we have received the imperial crown of the pope, pro beneficio, as a fief or gift, impugns the divine institution, contradicts St. Peter, and is a liar.'

Another of his charges against the pope complained that he had refused to destroy a picture, in which the Emperor Lothaire was represented as kneeling and soliciting the crown from Pope Innocent II. As our author has tried his hand on the monkish doggrel of its inscription, we must follow his example :

'Rex venit ante fores, jurans primum urbis honores,
Post homo fit papæ, sumit quo dante coronam.'

The king appeared before the door-
To observe the city's rights he swore-
As liegeman of the pope knelt down,
And as his gift received the crown.'

The elevation of Cardinal Roland, the imprudent legate who had asserted the pope's superiority in the full diet, to the pontificate, was not likely to mitigate the hostility of the contending parties. His election, however, was contested; an anti-pope, of course supported by the imperial faction, for several years divided the kingdoms of the West. But no greater proof can be given of the solid foundations on which the papal dominion rested, than that at this period the frequent schisms seemed not in the least to shake its authority. Alexander III. at length triumphed over his competitor-the Italian cities wrested their freedom from the reluctant emperor-and, at the famous meeting at Venice, the pope and the emperor met in the Place of St. Mark-the pope gave him the kiss of peace-the emperor received the sacrament from the hand of the pope, and held the stirrup as he mounted his palfrey; and mutual respect as well as cheerful intercourse between the spiritual and temporal sovereigns of the West gave the fairest hopes of long and undisturbed peace. It is to this occasion that later annalists have assigned that memorable incident which long passed as an historical fact, and was repeated on one side by the boastful partizans of the papal supremacy, on the other by the indignant denunciations of its adversaries against papal pride. It is said, that when the emperor prostrated himself before the pope, the haughty ecclesiastic set his foot upon his neck, with the words of the 91st Psalm,-"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder; the lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under

VOL. LI. NO. CII.