Chapter 1.II. An Historical Survey - not to Be Passed Over, Except by
Those Who Dislike to Understand What They Read.
Years had passed away, and the death of the Roman boy, amidst more noble
and less excusable slaughter, was soon forgotten, - forgotten almost by the
parents of the slain, in the growing fame and fortunes of their eldest son,
- forgotten and forgiven never by that son himself. But, between that
prologue of blood, and the political drama which ensues, - between the
fading interest, as it were, of a dream, and the more busy, actual, and
continuous excitements of sterner life, - this may be the most fitting time
to place before the reader a short and rapid outline of the state and
circumstances of that city in which the principal scenes of this story are
laid; - an outline necessary, perhaps, to many, for a full comprehension of
the motives of the actors, and the vicissitudes of the plot.
Despite the miscellaneous and mongrel tribes that had forced their
settlements in the City of the Caesars, the Roman population retained an
inordinate notion of their own supremacy over the rest of the world; and,
degenerated from the iron virtues of the Republic, possessed all the
insolent and unruly turbulence which characterised the Plebs of the ancient
Forum. Amongst a ferocious, yet not a brave populace, the nobles supported
themselves less as sagacious tyrants than as relentless banditti. The
popes had struggled in vain against these stubborn and stern patricians.
Their state derided, their command defied, their persons publicly outraged,
the pontiff-sovereigns of the rest of Europe resided, at the Vatican, as
prisoners under terror of execution. When, thirty-eight years before the
date of the events we are about to witness, a Frenchman, under the name of
Clement V., had ascended the chair of St. Peter, the new pope, with more
prudence than valour, had deserted Rome for the tranquil retreat of
Avignon; and the luxurious town of a foreign province became the court of
the Roman pontiff, and the throne of the Christian Church.
Thus deprived of even the nominal check of the papal presence, the power of
the nobles might be said to have no limits, save their own caprice, or
their mutual jealousies and feuds. Though arrogating through fabulous
genealogies their descent from the ancient Romans, they were, in reality,
for the most part, the sons of the bolder barbarians of the North; and,
contaminated by the craft of Italy, rather than imbued with its national
affections, they retained the disdain of their foreign ancestors for a
conquered soil and a degenerate people. While the rest of Italy,
especially in Florence, in Venice, and in Milan, was fast and far advancing
beyond the other states of Europe in civilisation and in art, the Romans
appeared rather to recede than to improve; - unblest by laws, unvisited by
art, strangers at once to the chivalry of a warlike, and the graces of a
peaceful, people. But they still possessed the sense and desire of
liberty, and, by ferocious paroxysms and desperate struggles, sought to
vindicate for their city the title it still assumed of "the Metropolis of
the World." For the last two centuries they had known various revolutions
- brief, often bloody, and always unsuccessful. Still, there was the empty
pageant of a popular form of government. The thirteen quarters of the city
named each a chief; and the assembly of these magistrates, called
Caporioni, by theory possessed an authority they had neither the power nor
the courage to exert. Still there was the proud name of Senator; but, at
the present time, the office was confined to one or to two persons,
sometimes elected by the pope, sometimes by the nobles. The authority
attached to the name seems to have had no definite limit; it was that of a
stern dictator, or an indolent puppet, according as he who held it had the
power to enforce the dignity he assumed. It was never conceded but to
nobles, and it was by the nobles that all the outrages were committed.
Private enmity alone was gratified whenever public justice was invoked:
and the vindication of order was but the execution of revenge.
Holding their palaces as the castles and fortresses of princes, each
asserting his own independency of all authority and law, and planting
fortifications, and claiming principalities in the patrimonial territories
of the Church, the barons of Rome made their state still more secure, and
still more odious, by the maintenance of troops of foreign (chiefly of
German) mercenaries, at once braver in disposition, more disciplined in
service, and more skilful in arms, than even the freest Italians of that
time. Thus they united the judicial and the military force, not for the
protection, but for the ruin of Rome. Of these barons, the most powerful
were the Orsini and Colonna; their feuds were hereditary and incessant, and
every day witnessed the fruits of their lawless warfare, in bloodshed, in
rape, and in conflagration. The flattery or the friendship of Petrarch,
too credulously believed by modern historians, has invested the Colonna,
especially of the date now entered upon, with an elegance and a dignity not
their own. Outrage, fraud, and assassination, a sordid avarice in securing
lucrative offices to themselves, an insolent oppression of their citizens,
and the most dastardly cringing to power superior to their own (with but
few exceptions), mark the character of the first family of Rome. But,
wealthier than the rest of the barons, they were, therefore, more
luxurious, and, perhaps, more intellectual; and their pride was flattered
in being patrons of those arts of which they could never have become the
professors. From these multiplied oppressors the Roman citizens turned
with fond and impatient regret to their ignorant and dark notions of
departed liberty and greatness. They confounded the times of the Empire
with those of the Republic; and often looked to the Teutonic king, who
obtained his election from beyond the Alps, but his title of emperor from
the Romans, as the deserter of his legitimate trust and proper home; vainly
imagining that, if both the Emperor and the Pontiff fixed their residence
in Rome, Liberty and Law would again seek their natural shelter beneath the
resuscitated majesty of the Roman people.
The absence of the pope and the papal court served greatly to impoverish
the citizens; and they had suffered yet more visibly by the depredations of
hordes of robbers, numerous and unsparing, who infested Romagna,
obstructing all the public ways, and were, sometimes secretly, sometimes,
openly, protected by the barons, who often recruited their banditti
garrisons by banditti soldiers.
But besides the lesser and ignobler robbers, there had risen in Italy a far
more formidable description of freebooters. A German, who assumed the
lofty title of the Duke Werner, had, a few years prior to the period we
approach, enlisted and organised a considerable force, styled "The Great
Company," with which he besieged cities and invaded states, without any
object less shameless than that of pillage. His example was soon imitated:
numerous "Companies," similarly constituted, devastated the distracted and
divided land. They appeared, suddenly raised, as if by magic, before the
walls of a city, and demanded immense sums as the purchase of peace.
Neither tyrant nor common wealth maintained a force sufficient to resist
them; and if other northern mercenaries were engaged to oppose them, it was
only to recruit the standards of the freebooters with deserters. Mercenary
fought not mercenary - nor German, German: and greater pay, and more
unbridled rapine, made the tents of the "Companies" far more attractive
than the regulated stipends of a city, or the dull fortress and
impoverished coffers of a chief. Werner, the most implacable and ferocious
of all these adventurers, and who had so openly gloried in his enormities
as to wear upon his breast a silver plate, engraved with the words, "Enemy
to God, to Pity, and to Mercy," had not long since ravaged Romagna with
fire and sword. But, whether induced by money, or unable to control the
fierce spirits he had raised, he afterwards led the bulk of his company
back to Germany. Small detachments, however, remained, scattered
throughout the land, waiting only an able leader once more to re-unite
them: amongst those who appeared most fitted for that destiny was Walter
de Montreal, a Knight of St. John, and gentleman of Provence, whose valour
and military genius had already, though yet young, raised his name into
dreaded celebrity; and whose ambition, experience, and sagacity, relieved
by certain chivalric and noble qualities, were suited to enterprises far
greater and more important than the violent depredations of the atrocious
Werner. From these scourges, no state had suffered more grievously than
Rome. The patrimonial territories of the pope, - in part wrested from him
by petty tyrants, in part laid waste by these foreign robbers, - yielded
but a scanty supply to the necessities of Clement VI., the most
accomplished gentleman and the most graceful voluptuary of his time; and
the good father had devised a plan, whereby to enrich at once the Romans
and their pontiff.
Nearly fifty years before the time we enter upon, in order both to
replenish the papal coffers and pacify the starving Romans, Boniface VIII.
had instituted the Festival of the Jubilee, or Holy Year; in fact, a
revival of a Pagan ceremonial. A plenary indulgence was promised to every
Catholic who, in that year, and in the first year of every succeeding
century, should visit the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. An immense
concourse of pilgrims, from every part of Christendom, had attested the
wisdom of the invention; "and two priests stood night and day, with rakes
in their hands, to collect without counting the heaps of gold and silver
that were poured on the altar of St. Paul." (Gibbon, vol. xii. c. 59.)
It is not to be wondered at that this most lucrative festival should, ere
the next century was half expired, appear to a discreet pontiff to be too
long postponed. And both pope and city agreed in thinking it might well
bear a less distant renewal. Accordingly, Clement VI. had proclaimed,
under the name of the Mosaic Jubilee, a second Holy Year for 1350 - viz.,
three years distant from that date at which, in the next chapter, my
narrative will commence. This circumstance had a great effect in whetting
the popular indignation against the barons, and preparing the events I
shall relate; for the roads were, as I before said, infested by the
banditti, the creatures and allies of the barons. And if the roads were
not cleared, the pilgrims might not attend. It was the object of the
pope's vicar, Raimond, bishop of Orvietto (bad politician and good
canonist), to seek, by every means, to remove all impediment between the
offerings of devotion and the treasury of St. Peter.
Such, in brief, was the state of Rome at the period we are about to
examine. Her ancient mantle of renown still, in the eyes of Italy and of
Europe, cloaked her ruins. In name, at least, she was still the queen of
the earth; and from her hands came the crown of the emperor of the north,
and the keys of the father of the church. Her situation was precisely that
which presented a vase and glittering triumph to bold ambition, - an
inspiring, if mournful, spectacle to determined patriotism, - and a fitting
stage for that more august tragedy which seeks its incidents, selects its
actors, and shapes its moral, amidst the vicissitudes and crimes of
nations.
