faithful supporter, or the defence of a beneficent CHAP.II. suzerain, against such powerful aggression, as left PART II. little prospect except of sharing in his ruin. FEUDAL From these feelings engendered by the feudal SYSTEM. relation has sprung up the peculiar sentiment of personal reverence and attachment towards a sovereign, which we denominate loyalty; alike distinguishable from the stupid devotion of eastern slaves, and from the abstract respect with which free citizens regard their chief magistrate. Men who had been used to swear fealty, to profess subjection, to follow, at home and in the field, a feudal superior and his family, easily transferred the same allegiance to the monarch. It was a very powerful feeling, which could make the bravest men put up with slights and ill treatment at the hands of their sovereign; or call forth all the energies of disinterested exertion for one whom they never saw, and in whose character there was nothing to esteem. In ages when the rights of the community were unfelt, this sentiment was one great preservative of society; and, though collateral or even subservient to more enlarged principles, it is still indispensable to the tranquillity and permanence of every monarchy. In a moral view, loyalty has scarcely perhaps less tendency to refine and elevate the heart than patriotism itself; and holds a middle place in the scale of human motives, as they ascend from the grosser inducements of self-interest, to the furtherance of general happiness and conformity to the purposes of Infinite Wisdom. CHAPTER III. THE HISTORY OF ITALY, FROM THE EXTINCTION OF СНАР. III. PART I. ITALY. State of Italy at the end of the ninth century. PART I. State of Italy after the death of Charles the Fat-Coronation of Otho the Great-State of Rome-Conrad II.-Union of the Kingdom of Italy with the Empire-Establishment of the Normans in Naples and Sicily-Roger Guiscard-Rise of the Lombard Cities-They gradually become more independent of the Empire-Their internal Wars-Frederic Barbarossa-Destruction of Milan-Lombard League- Battle of Legnano-Peace of Constance-Temporal Principality of the Popes-Guelf and Ghibelin Factions-Otho IV.-Frederic II.-Arrangement of the Italian Republics—Second Lombard War—Extinction of the House of Swabia-Causes of the Success of Lombard Republics— Their Prosperity-and Forms of Government-Contentions between the Nobility and People-Civil Wars-Story of Giovanni di Vicenza.* Ar the death of Charles the Fat in 888, that part of Italy which acknowledged the supremacy of The authorities upon which this chapter is founded, and which do not always appear at the foot of the page, are chiefly the following. 1. Muratori's Annals of Italy (twelve volumes in 4to. or eighteen in 8vo.) comprehend a summary of its history from the beginning of the Christian æra to the peace of Aix la Chapelle. The volumes relating to the middle ages, into which he has digested the ori the western empire was divided, like France and CHAP. Germany, among a few powerful vassals, heredi ginal writers contained in his great collection, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, are by much the best; and of these, the part which extends from the seventh or eighth to the end of the twelfth century is the fullest and most useful. Muratori's accuracy is in general almost implicitly to be trusted, and his plain integrity speaks in all his writings; but his mind was not philosophical enough to discriminate the wheat from the chaff, and his habits of life induced him to annex an imaginary importance to the dates of diplomas and other inconsiderable matters. His narrative presents a mere skeleton devoid of juices; and besides its intolerable aridity, it labours under that confusion, which a merely chronological arrangement of concurrent and independent events must always produce. 2. The dissertations on Italian Antiquities, by the same writer, may be considered either as one, or two works. In Latin, they form six volumes in folio, enriched with a great number of original documents. In Italian, they are freely translated by Muratori himself, abridged no doubt, and without most of the original instruments, but well furnished with quotations, and abundantly sufficient for most purposes. They form three vofumes in quarto. I have in general quoted only the number of the dissertation, on account of the variance between the Latin and Italian works: in cases where the - page is referred to, I have indicated, by the title, which of the two I intend to vouch. 3. St. Marc, a learned and laborious Frenchman, has written a chronological abridge ment of Italian history, somewhat in the manner of Hénault, but so strangely divided by several parallel columns in every page, that I could hardly name a book more inconvenient to the reader. His knowledge, like Muratori's, lay a good deal in points of minute inquiry; and he is chiefly to be va, lued in ecclesiastical history. The work descends only to the thirteenth century. 4. Denina's Rivoluzioni d'Italia, originally published in 1769, is a perspicuous and lively book, in which the principal circumstances are well selected. It is not perhaps free from errors in fact, and still less from those of opinion; but, till lately, I do not know from what source a general acquaintance with the history of Italy could have been so easily derived. 5. The publication of M. Sismondi's Histoire des Républiques Italiennes has thrown a blaze of light around the most interesting, at least in many respects, of European countries during the middle ages. I am happy to bear witness, so far as my own studies have enabled me, to the learning and diligence of this writer; qualities which the world is sometimes apt not to suppose, where they perceive so much eloquence and philosophy. I cannot express my opinion of M. Sismondi in this respect more strongly than by saying that his work has almost superseded the annals of Muratori; I mean from the twelfth century, before which period his labour hardly begins. Though doubtless not more accurate than Muratori, he has consulted a much more extensive list of authors; and, considered as a III. PART I. ITALY. III. PART I. CHAP. tary governors of provinces. The principal of these were the dukes of Spoleto and Tuscany, the marquises of Ivrea, Susa, and Friuli. The great ITALY. Lombard duchy of Benevento, which had stood against the arms of Charlemagne, and comprised more than half the present kingdom of Naples, had now fallen into decay, and was straightened by the Greeks in Apulia, and by the principalities of Capua and Salerno, which had been severed from its own territory, on the opposite coast.* And in the Though princes of the Carlovingian line continued to reign in France, their character was too little distinguished to challenge the obedience of Italy, first part of the tenth. register of facts alone, his history considerable attention; perhaps there is no volume of it, which I have not more or less consulted. But, after the annals of the same writer, and the work of M. Sismondi, I have not thought myself bound to repeat a laborious search into all the authorities upon which those writers depend. The utility, for the most part, of perusing original and contemporary authors, consists less in ascertaining mere facts, than in acquiring that insight into the spirit and temper of their times, which it is utterly impracticable for any compiler to impart. It would be impossible for me to distinguish what information I have derived from these higher sources; in cases therefore, where no particular authority is named, I would refer to the writings of Muratori and Sismondi, especially the latter, as the substratum of the following chapter. * Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli, 1. vii. Sismondi, Hist. des Républiques Italiennes, t.i. p. 244. III. PART I. already separated by family partitions from the CHAP. Transalpine nations; and the only contest was among her native chiefs. One of these, Berenger, originally marquis of Friuli, or the March of Tre- ITALY. viso, reigned for thirty-six years, but with continu- . ally disputed pretensions; and after his death, the calamities of Italy were sometimes aggravated by tyranny, and sometimes by intestine war. The Hungarians desolated Lombardy; the southern coasts were infested by the Saracens, now masters of Sicily. Plunged in an abyss from which she saw no other means of extricating herself, Italy lost sight of her favourite independence, and called in the assistance of Otho the First, king of Germany. Little opposition was made to this powerful monarch. Berenger II. the reigning sovereign of Italy, submitted to hold the kingdom of him as a fief.* But, some years afterwards, new disturbances arising, Otho descended from Otho the the Alps a second time, deposed Berenger, and 961 received at the hands of Pope John XII. the imperial dignity, which had been suspended for nearly forty years. Every ancient prejudice, every recollection, whether of Augustus or of Charlemagne, had led the Italians to annex the notion of sovereignty to the name of Roman Emperor; nor were Otho, or his two immediate descendants, by any means inclined to wave these supposed prerogatives which they were well able to enforce. Most of the Lom * Muratori, A.D. 951. Denina, Rivoluzioni d'Italia, l. ix. c. 6, Great. |