the ambrosian city

“verenanda est roma in apostolo. sed nec spernendum mediolanum in ambrosio.”—arnulphus.

milan is to-day the most modern of italian cities. her risorgimento in the last century, accomplished with the pouring out of blood and the efforts of a strenuous virtue, makes for her a mighty and sufficing past in the near background, and she seems to stand wholly on this side of it, triumphant and new-create. neither nature nor the further centuries have, you feel, any longer part in her. who of the numberless travellers from the north, as they lose the vision of mountain, lake and green champaign, just traversed, in the bustle and confinement of the crowded streets, realises that this solid mass of brick and stone, this vast hive of human beings, is the slow product of that enchanting country, of its rivers and fertile soil, built up and moulded by human passion and labour during thousands of years amid the changes and chances of extraordinarily varied fortunes. only when his eyes, lifted above the regular roof-lines of the modern streets, light upon the 2gothic pinnacles of the duomo, and a further acquaintance with the city discovers, wedged among the growths of yesterday, the many relics of her older past—the castle of the fifteenth century sforza, renaissance palaces and churches, st. ambrogio and its compeers of the era of liberty, a rare fragment of the older imperial civilisation—does he become conscious of the long and painful course of the centuries, and remember that he stands in the secular capital of lombardy, on ground as storied almost as the sacred dust of rome.

the name alone of lombardy calls up visions of continuous strife. there the nations who have made their grave in italy lie most thickly. the sunny fruitful plains at the foot of the barren mountains have been fattened from the beginning by human blood. the love of figs—a phrase which has passed into the language of the icelanders as an expression for all passionate appetite—has again and again impelled the peoples of the grudging north to storm the barrier of snows and seek the delusive land of promise beyond. principalities and kingdoms have been founded there one after another, only to perish in turn, as if the soft land of morass and meadow were some unstable quicksand created for the engulfing of men. etruscans, insubri, latins, visigoths, lombards, french and spaniards, have come and gone, in the midst of an almost incessant warfare.

yet through all the changes, a quiet, continuous labour was going on, restraining and directing the courses of the rivers, draining the marshes, taming the wild luxuriance of the land to fertile use and order, and slowly building up out of the confusion of conflicting elements the solid foundations of the present.

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the duomo from hotel europe

4seated in the centre of the plain which spreads out at the foot of the alps, and commanding the natural gateways between italy and the countries to north and 5west, milan seems to have held from the first the chief position among the cities of lombardy. in the early centuries of our era it was hardly less important in the north of italy than rome was in the south. the line of the po, cutting across the peninsula, or perhaps more correctly, the apennine chain, originally divided italy ethnologically and politically, a division which still endures to some degree in the character and sentiments of the respective inhabitants on either side. the insubri, who drove out the etruscans and settled in lombardy about the sixth century (b.c.), were a race of gallic origin. they had no ties of blood with the romans, who subjugated them later, and their country—called by the conquerors, cisalpine gaul—was as much a foreign province of the latin dominion as the gaul beyond the alps. on the other hand their relationship and familiarity with that gaul was so close that it has influenced the sympathies of the milanese people throughout history, and has left a strong impress on their dialect. when some centuries later the capital of the empire was losing its controlling power, and the bond uniting the members of that immense artificial system was beginning to relax, milan assumed an almost independent position. as the seat of diocletian and his colleague maximian, she could scorn abandoned rome, looking with compassion from her magnificent palaces and baths, her populous streets and mighty walls, to the silent courts and colonnades of the palatine hill. constantine completed her severance from rome by dividing italy into two separate portions of the empire, and making milan the capital of the northern half, with a government distinct from rome. the old racial boundaries were thus restored, and on these lines were built up the many later schemes for the foundation of a kingdom of italy. and on these lines there rose within the new ecclesiastical empire which 6was shaping itself out of the ruins of the old roman system, an episcopal dominion extending over all lombardy, and virtually independent of the church of rome. many centuries were to pass, and fierce struggles to take place, before the church of milan was brought into subjection to the papal see. this work of unification, accomplished chiefly by the potent mind of gregory vii. in the eleventh century, in association with a growing instinct of nationality in the milanese people themselves, was one of the most important steps in the process by which the various and alien elements of the great lombard city were converted into a component part of the italian nation.

we cannot pause to search into the origins of the city in that obscure antiquity which italian legend fills with the figures of diluvian and trojan heroes, on an equal plane of remoteness, or to inquire closely into the mystery of her name, mediolanum, as it is in the latin tongue, whence by derivation—influenced, doubtless, by the sweet appellation mailand, land of may, which her green refreshing aspect suggested to her teutonic invaders—it has become milano. the simplest and most generally accepted explanation of the name is that it is a bastard word, between latin and teutonic, signifying the middle land, and suggested by the city’s central position in the plain.

we must take up our story at the beginning of that barbarian inrush through the yielding barriers of the empire, which by mingling the vigour of new blood with the effete products of roman civilisation, generated the travail of medi?val italy, and out of that travail a nation. milan had already a great past, closely bound up with the vicissitudes of the later empire. from diocletian and constantine downwards she was honoured almost constantly by the presence of emperors. julian was proclaimed c?sar within her walls. many 7edicts of constantius were published there, valentinian made his residence in the city, and there theodosius spent long periods, and there died and was buried. the empress justina and her young son, valentinian ii., had their seat in milan, and the slothful and degenerate honorius ruled from its palace the empire of the west, till frightened out by the goths. the wealth and luxury of the city in the fourth century, her culture, her innumerable fine houses, her magnificent walls, built by maximian, her circus, temples, theatres, baths, are celebrated in a famous epigram by the latin poet ausonius, who proclaims her the paragon of rome.

but at the end of this century the imperial era was rapidly declining and giving way to a new order of things. a fresh period of irruptions from the north was at hand, and within the ancient polity itself a new organisation, the christian church, had arisen and was usurping spiritual authority. milan had been early conspicuous in the history of christianity. legend names s. barnabas himself as the founder and first occupant of her see, and she had testified to the new faith in the days of persecution by the blood of many martyrs. ss. gervasio and protasio, the youthful warrior pair, ss. nazaro and celso, master and faithful disciple, ss. felix and nabor, s. valeria, san vittore, and many others, are recorded with picturesque and touching details in milanese legends and art. and in milan the triumph of christianity was first proclaimed, since here constantine subscribed his edict of toleration in 313. but christianity, established soon after as the state religion, had yet to struggle with the difficulty of conflicting counsels and doctrines within its own body. the tenets promulgated by the council of nic?a in 532 were by no means universally accepted by christians in the fourth century, and in north italy the teachings of arius were widely followed, especially 8by the gothic subjects of the empire. under the empress regent justina they were the religion of the imperial court in milan, and the whole population was divided into fiercely hostile parties by the doctrinal question.

it was at this critical point of her political and ecclesiastical destinies that there appeared in milan one of those epoch-making characters who from time to time arise at moments of hesitation in the history of human communities, and apparently initiate and determine their subsequent course. the great figure of her bishop ambrose, saint and doctor of the church, scourge of the arians, subduer of emperors, stands for milan at the opening of a new era, to which his dominant mind gives impress, direction and inspiration. from this time forward, milan is no more the imperial, but the ambrosian city. throughout her medi?val existence the consecrating memory of st. ambrogio, her patron and protector, set like a spiritual jewel in a hundred exquisite and devoutly fantastic legends, is present in her government, her struggles for liberty, her art and peaceful industry, her daily life and the peculiar ritual of her religious worship.

in 374 auxentius, bishop of milan, died. he had been an arian. a great contention arose between the two doctrinal parties over the choice of his successor. the city was in a state of uproar, and it became necessary to summon the prefect of the province to restore peace. a brilliant young advocate named ambrosius, of a roman family of high standing in the official world, had been lately appointed prefect. he came to the capital and convoked a public assembly in the chief church, to assist at the election of a bishop. it was impossible, however, for the two parties to agree in a selection; the powerful court influence of the arians being balanced by a preponderance of orthodox 9catholics among the people. suddenly, above the angry noise of dispute which filled the church, a clear voice, as of a child, was heard to pronounce distinctly three times over the words, ambrose is bishop. the nolo episcopari of the young governor, vigorously expressed, and emphasised, according to legend, by his flight from the city, nothing availed to save him from the dignity which the unanimous will of the people now forced upon him, and ambrose, as yet unbaptized, was made bishop of milan. whether the apparent finger of providence had been directed by some hidden terrestrial agency, it is ungrateful to inquire. ambrose, in deserting the service of the decaying empire for the government of the metropolitan see of lombardy, had undoubtedly found the right field for his mighty energies. he was a great christian, a man of profound doctrine, of pure life and loftiest spiritual qualities. he was also the most able of statesmen. none knew so well the power of this new polity of the christian church amid the struggling confusion of forces in the moribund empire. he became paramount with his pupil, the young emperor gratian, and used his influence to stamp mercilessly upon the last embers of paganism, overthrowing with unsparing arguments all the pleas of the patrician symmachus and the conservative party in the roman senate in favour of the preservation of the stately faith and customs of their forefathers. the doctrinal unity of the church itself was his next great task. the arian heresy was, as we have seen, strongly entrenched in the palace of the empress and her son, valentinian ii. nevertheless, ambrose decreed a uniform orthodox worship in all the numerous churches in the city. justina protested, and demanded the use of the new basilica within the walls—the principal church in fact—for the arians. this being refused, she ordered the bishop to give up 10the basilica porciana, outside the city. ambrose meekly offered her his life and all his possessions, everything except what she wanted, the church. “a temple of god could not be given up by a priest.” temporal arms were then moved against him. but all the forces of the empire together would have been helpless against the martyr spirit of the bishop. the cathedral was his fortress, and there he entrenched himself in the strength of his holiness, surrounded by excited multitudes, whose ardour he inflamed by fiery discourses, in which he likened the empress to eve bringing ruin upon adam, to jezebel fighting elijah, salome destroying john baptist, till they vowed to die with him rather than suffer the temporal authority to prevail over the spiritual. the very soldiers investing the church, terrified by the dreadful anathemas pronounced upon them, rushed in, not to do battle against the faithful, but to pray with them. for days the people continued in the church with the bishop, and on this occasion, st. augustine says, ‘it was first instituted that after the manner of the eastern churches, hymns and psalms should be sung, lest the people should faint through the weariness of sorrow’—a famous evidence of the fact that st. ambrose was the first to introduce the use of music into the services of the western church.

it is interesting to note in the midst of that vast crowd of now nameless and forgotten individuals a figure well known to all times since, the small quiet african mother, monica, who had followed her son across the terrible winter seas, resolved in her invincible spirit to guide his seeking soul into the haven of the true faith. and augustine himself, the young professor just appointed to the chair of rhetoric in milan, must have been present too, gazing upon the surprising scene of this persecuted but dauntless pastor and 11his devoted flock. every vestige of the basilica nova intramurana, where the great struggle took place, is now long gone. but its place is still the place of milan’s cathedral, the great gothic duomo of later times. and the episcopal palace of to-day occupies the same site—or near it—of the dwelling of ambrose, where augustine, his heart swelling with eager questions, would often enter uninvited, as all might freely do, and watch the holy man in silence, restrained from speaking by the fear of disturbing him as he sat reading in his moments of leisure and preparing himself to expound to the people.

but it would be vain to seek to-day even for the place of that fourth-century house upon the walls—maximian’s walls—where augustine lodged with his mother and the marvellous boy adeodatus, his son, fated so early to die. or for the little garden where he hid himself one day, even from his faithful follower alypius, and amid the throes of a terrible spiritual anguish heard the unseen child’s voice chanting in pure, untroubled tones, ‘take up and read, take up and read,’ and opening the volume of the apostle saw the words which lifted his soul out of the torture of conflicting desire into the serenity of faith at last. nor is any trace left of the original baptistery for males, on the south side of the cathedral, where the subsequent baptism of augustine, adeodatus and alypius, at the hands of ambrose, was in all probability performed. the place is occupied now by the church of san gottardo.

the conflict between empress and bishop was won by ambrose. justina’s efforts to depose him and set up a new bishop were completely frustrated by his timely discovery of the bodies of the milanese martyrs, ss. gervasio and protasio, a miraculous event which raised him to an invincible position in the opinion of all christendom. the triumph of the great bishop, 12though it savours now of bigotry, was of deep and far-reaching significance. it was the revolt of the new and as yet hardly tried church against the ancient imperial authority. it pointed to the future. it initiated that obstinate and long-continued struggle between the temporal and spiritual powers which makes the history of the middle ages in italy. for milan and for lombardy it meant more; it was a protest against the influence of the foreigner, against a strange domination in thought. the arian heresy was alien and unnatural to italian sentiment; its followers were chiefly among the large population of goths settled by this time in italy. ambrose, in rallying round him the masses of the people and conquering the established powers, was in fact appealing to the elements out of which the commune of later days was to develop—to those instincts of liberty and nationality of which the medi?val church was to be the glorious guide and champion.

the later and more famous triumph of ambrose—when, before the doors of the same basilica nova, he stood, armed only with the insignia of his sacerdotal office, and barred the entrance of the sanctuary to the blood-stained emperor theodosius, till, awed by his spiritual dignity, the wearer of the purple sank before the white-robed priest and did public penance for the massacre of thessalonica—was another and greater proof of the ascendency of the ecclesiastical over the imperial power. but the significance of the scene reaches further, and embraces the whole sphere of humanity. in standing bishop and kneeling king we see, not the individuals and their immediate motives, ambitious, despotic, superstitious, as they may partly have been, not even the struggle of great transitory interests, but a wider, deeper, more enduring principle—the recognition of the supremacy of spirit over brute 13force, the victory of the christian ideal of love and pity over the earthly lusts of blood and revenge, of the religion which adores the helpless mother and child over the deified force of the ancient creeds.

ambrose was now the most powerful man in the empire, ruling the minds of men by the sheer strength of character and lofty virtue. the barbarians in their distant lands testified to the might of his saintliness—this man who, as a frankish king asserted with awe, says to the sun, ‘stand still,’ and it stands. the two young emperors, gratian and valentinian, were tools in his hands, and theodosius himself had to acknowledge the church in the person of ambrose as a twin power in the realm. when the bishop died in 397, he bequeathed to his successors an episcopal dominion so strengthened by his powerful personality, and glorified by the sanctity of his life and doctrine, that it was ever after associated with his name, and known as the ambrosian church. with its numerous and wealthy dependent bishoprics, its arch-pontiff or pope, its cardinals, as the chief clergy were called later, and immense hierarchy, its peculiar liturgy and ritual, this church was accorded the title of holy—santa chiesa—and acknowledged as self-governing by gregory the great himself.

the milan of ambrose and augustine still belonged in outward aspect to the imperial past. but a general decay, hastened by exorbitant taxation and bad administration, was visible at this time throughout north italy, where many of the chief towns were, in ambrose’s own words, corpses of half-ruined cities. at the opening of the fifth century the simulacrum of empire was attacked by the goths under alaric (402), and half a century later (450) attila, flagellum dei, passed with his huns over the face of italy, uprooting the useless remains of the ancient world, as a plough furrows 14a field for the new sowing. milan came within his course, but how deep and extensive was the ruin wrought by him there we do not know. his was but the first operation in god’s tilling of that rank soil for the new life it was to bear. in 538 the city suffered a second and apparently more complete destruction, during the war of narses and belisarius for the recovery of italy from the ostrogothic dynasty established by theodoric. milan revolted from the gothic king vitige and allied herself with the eastern generals. vitige despatched a portion of his army, swelled by a host of burgundians from the mountains, ancestors, probably, of those swiss who were to plague the milanese in later history. the city was closely invested, and after some months, deceived in the expectation of succour from belisarius, she fell a victim to the revenge of the goths. the historian procopius describes the three hundred thousand slain, the women sold as slaves, the habitations razed to the ground, and his statement, in spite of obvious exaggeration, is an indication of the awful havoc and desolation inflicted upon the still soft, corrupt and luxurious city.

this blow seems to have crushed the vitality of milan. for centuries she remained in a weak and depressed condition. during the lombard domination, which swept away the brief authority of the eastern empire established by the arms of narses, her pre-eminence in north italy was usurped by pavia, which alboin and his successors chose as the capital of their new realm, now first called lombardy. the broken palaces of the once imperial metropolis no longer sheltered sovereigns. the lombard kings delegated their authority in the city to a governor, whom they called duke—whence the name cordusio, still used in the centre of the city, a corruption of corte ducis, the palace or judgment-hall of the duke—and only 15approached from time to time to hold a diet within the vast melancholy area of her deserted circus. even the successors of st. barnabas and st. ambrose abandoned her, and transferred the see to genoa, where it remained till the next century, diminished in power and prestige by its exile from the city of the ambrosian tradition, while the roman pontiffs, throughout the two centuries of lombard supremacy, were quietly increasing their influence and making good that claim to supreme spiritual authority before which the ambrosian church was in the end to succumb.

the return of the episcopal see to milan indicates some degree of revival in the city. but two hundred years more were to pass before her church resumed its old importance, and milan her rightful rank in north italy. under charlemagne, who conquered desiderio in 774, and created a so-called kingdom of italy, milan held only the third place among the metropolitan sees, yielding precedence after rome to ravenna. the frankish king, whose great scheme of a restored roman empire included a united latin church under the pope as supreme head, not only exalted the spiritual authority of rome over the other sees, but even endeavoured to suppress the peculiarities of the ambrosian liturgy and force milan into uniformity with the rest of the latin church. he is said to have descended upon the city and seized all the liturgical books, burning some and carrying others away into germany. but even his will was helpless against the cherished custom of centuries. some religious men, so the chronicler declares, succeeded in hiding copies of the books, and as soon as the emperor had disappeared, they were unearthed and the old rites resumed as before.

the political changes of the ninth and tenth centuries favoured the revival of the lombard see. with the 16disruption of charlemagne’s swollen empire, and the removal of the temporal support, the spiritual sovereignty of rome and the unity of the church broke down, at least in practice, and the grand and comprehensive idea of a single rule of christendom under the twin sceptres of emperor and pope—that inspiration of great minds in the middle ages—failed now, as later, of realisation. amid the ungoverned turbulence of the roman nobles and citizens the papacy gradually sank to the lowest depths of corruption and impotence, and any deference to its authority once paid by the milanese primates was soon forgotten.

for a while the carlovingian kingdom of italy held together in spite of constant wars, and under louis ii. lombardy enjoyed a period of peace and great prosperity. but after his death in 875, the country, rent by the struggles of various claimants to the throne, and overrun by huns and saracens, was gradually reduced to a state of chaos, out of which the power of the feudal barons emerged as the only effective authority. the counts and viscounts, as the imperial ministers were properly called, lost their authority, or else preserved it as an hereditary and almost independent right from father to son, fitting themselves as time went on into the graduated order of the feudal system, which was extending itself into the whole organisation of society. the one stable power, that of the church, based on an inextinguishable tradition, became paramount in the city, and in virtue of its vast possessions assumed the temporal as well as the spiritual dominion. by the tenth century the archbishops of milan appear as great feudal princes, the most powerful in north italy, and practically independent of the emperor. this position was largely due to the spirit and ability of the two great prelates of the previous century, angilberto (824-59), and ansperto (868-81). ansperto openly 17refused the obedience claimed from him by john viii. by assembling and presiding over the diet of the princes of north italy at pavia, which elected charles the bald as successor to louis ii., and afterwards crowning the new monarch, he arrogated the right of conferring the crown of italy independently of the papal approval. he appears in this election as a great temporal prince, leading the north italian states, and expressing the revolt of lombardy against the pretensions of the pope in the lateran to the heritage of the power which once dominated the world from the capitol. throughout the struggles of the next twenty years for the possession of the throne, ansperto’s support was always given in opposition to the pope. when summoned by john viii. to a council at rome in 879, to answer for his offences against the holy see, he shut the door against the papal legates, so that they were compelled to the undignified proceeding of shouting the pontiff’s complaint through the keyhole; and he and all his vast flock, which included, with the suffragan sees, the whole of lombardy, were totally indifferent to the excommunication stammered against them by the enraged and helpless pope.

archbishop ansperto was the chief restorer of the city as well as of the church of milan. he rebuilt and repaired the broken walls, the buildings ruined by the barbarians, and by his wise and resolute government gave a much-needed security to the life and property of the citizens. it was a greatly increased power which he transmitted to his successors, who wielded it with the same autocratic spirit. in the confusion of the carlovingian break-up, when no one knew who was the rightful sovereign of the old lombard kingdom, or who held the prerogative of electing him, the archbishops of milan assumed the part of king-makers, and laid the crown, now on the head of 18an italian prince, now on that of some heir of the carlovingian tradition. the constant aim of the archbishops was to increase and consolidate their power, and the weakness of the royal authority gave them their chance. the story of the city in these two centuries is chiefly composed of the contests of the primates with the successive wearers of the lombard crown, who in their turn endeavoured to tyrannise over the see by seizing the right to elect its occupant, and filling it with their own rapacious and arrogant favourites. these royal appointments were violently opposed by the people, so that the city was distracted by constant schisms and civil warfare. from 948 to 953 the strife between adelmano, the choice of the citizens, and manasses, an ambitious and intriguing foreign priest, whom berengarius had appointed to the see, filled milan with tumult and bloodshed, during which the ambrosian church was despoiled of much of its treasure. the election in 953 of a third aspirant, walperto, to whom the others gave way, closed at last the miserable war. with the coronation of otho the great (964) in st. ambrogio, by this archbishop, who had crossed the alps in person to summon the german prince to the deliverance of italy from the cruel tyranny of berengarius, a blessed period of peace and consequent prosperity began for milan, favourable to the development of those popular forces in the city—hitherto depressed by constant terror and insecurity—which were to make her history in the coming centuries.

the peace, however, soon bred in the city a restless vigour which could find no other vent than war. under ariberto d’intimiano, who was elected archbishop in 1018, milan, now restored to undisputed pre-eminence over her rival pavia and the rest of the lombard cities, started upon a career of conquest. in ariberto the archiepiscopal pallium cloaked a potent statesman and 19warrior, who well knew how to defend that temporal power which the ecclesiastics of the middle ages looked upon as the best guarantee of their spiritual authority. when the emperor henry ii., who followed the othos, died in 1024, and the uncertainty as to his successor on the lombard throne threatened new trouble to italy, ariberto hastened to germany, and on his sole authority, according to one chronicler, though others say that he was supported by a party of italian magnates, offered the kingdom to conrad the salic. two years later (1026) he reasserted the right of the primate of milan to crown the king of italy, by laying the circlet on the new monarch’s brow within the city itself. at conrad’s subsequent coronation in rome as emperor, the archbishop of milan was the most important of the imposing company of ecclesiastical princes who attended on the occasion. his dignified withdrawal from a contest with the archbishop of ravenna for the place of highest honour was followed by a formal recognition of his primacy in a papal bull, while with less self-restraint his vast train of followers reduced the company of the ravennese prelate to proper submission by apostolic blows and knocks in the streets of rome, amid a tremendous uproar. milan’s ecclesiastical superiority to ravenna and all other italian sees was thus triumphantly settled.

ariberto’s ambition for the glory and predominance of milan was well supported by the people. they followed the militant prelate with enthusiasm to the subjugation of pavia, which had refused to acknowledge conrad as king (1027), and a little later they made a furious assault under his command upon the little neighbouring city of lodi, and forced its freedom-loving inhabitants to submit to ariberto’s yoke and accept a bishop of his choosing. thus milan, impelled by the pride and ambition and necessity of 20expansion bred of strength and riches, was the first to provoke that spirit of hatred and revenge among the sister cities of lombardy, which could only be expiated by centuries of bloodshed and sorrow.

but neither leader nor people had any doubt of the righteousness of their military enterprises, which were indeed invested with a sort of religious consecration. ariberto instituted the use of a sacred car in times of war, which bore aloft in the midst of the host the tokens of the christian covenant, the cross and the altar of sacrifice, in sanctifying association with the vexillum of the city. round these emblems of their faith and of their existence as a community the citizen soldiers would rally, bearing the car forward to victory with irresistible enthusiasm in moments of advantage, or defending it with despairing resolve when defeat threatened. thus was originated the caroccio, adopted afterwards by all the communes of italy—an exalted and beautiful idea, which, though often debased by association with enterprises of greed or revenge, became also the guide and inspiration of the lombard peoples in their noble struggle for liberty in the succeeding centuries.

that struggle was already foreshadowed in ariberto’s time. the pride of the archbishop and the city which he governed soon came into violent contact with the will of the emperor. conrad resented the prelate’s increasing encroachment upon the royal prerogatives. besides the sovereign right of making war, the archbishop claimed the privilege of investing the bishops of his jurisdiction and the secular nobles also with their fiefs. his assumption of autocratic authority provoked a large party of the lesser nobles, who made an insurrection against him in 1036, and being defeated and driven out of the city, united with the aggrieved citizens of lodi and broke into open warfare. a fierce battle was fought 21at campo malo, in which ariberto appears to have been worsted. the emperor, regarding the moment as favourable for asserting his authority, crossed the alps (1037) to restore peace. but on arriving in milan he did not find the humility and submission which he expected, and offended, or perhaps alarmed, by the haughtiness of the prince prelate and the excited temper of the populace, he retired to pavia, and there summoned ariberto to appear before a diet, to answer the accusations of his enemies. the archbishop obeyed, and without allowing him time for defence, conrad commanded his arrest. he was carried to piacenza and there kept in captivity. but conrad had hardly reckoned with the power which lay behind his great vassal. instead of accepting this chastisement with resignation, milan broke into an uproar of lamentation at the news of her pastor’s imprisonment. with fastings, processions and litanies, with oblations, and benefactions to the poor, the pious citizens hoped to propitiate heaven on his behalf, while the more worldly-minded sought to procure his rescue. at last, after two months, ariberto himself found a means of escape with the aid of the abbess of the great convent of san sisto in piacenza. this lady, at the request of a trusty servant whom the prelate managed to send to her, despatched to him twenty mules laden with divers kinds of delicate meats, and ten waggon loads of wine, out of the goodly stores of the convent. with these provisions ariberto made a great feast for his teuton guards, who soon stupefied themselves with the good wine. the milanese chronicler landolfo describes the scene—‘ ... they became beyond measure intoxicated—persisting in their potations until the middle of the night, and each one provoking his neighbour to drink more and more.... they began to quarrel and threaten one another with rolling 22eyes and terrible voices, and then to weep with thick tears pouring down their faces, and so drunk were they with the wine that they did not know what they were doing, and their limbs would not serve their office so that they fell down prostrate. the servants of ariberto, seeing them in this plight, were immensely rejoiced, and carrying them away one by one, laid them out on well prepared couches as if they had been dead men....’ while the teutons lay thus and ‘snored terribly,’ the prisoner slipped quietly off to the river po hard by, where he found a ship, sent by the abbess, in readiness for him. into this he entered, and soon reached milan in safety, while his guards, awaking, half stupid from their drunken slumbers, went seeking for him everywhere with hideous clamour.

the fugitive was soon followed by the irate emperor, with a great army, and milan was closely besieged. mighty deeds of valour were performed on either side, according to the milanese chroniclers. but all the efforts of the great emperor and his hosts were unavailing against the city, defended by its ancient roman walls and by an enormous population. after a few months he raised the siege, and endeavoured with equal futility to overthrow ariberto by deposing him and setting up another archbishop. his persecution of milan provoked, the chroniclers tell us, a signal manifestation of the divine wrath, in the person of st. ambrose himself, who appeared one day in the midst of terrible thunder and lightning as the emperor was listening to the mass, and caused such consternation among those present that many fell down dead. thus, worsted by supernatural as well as earthly means, conrad retired to suabia in 1038, leaving the archbishop master of the situation, and to all intents and purposes potentate of lombardy.

but this crowning height to which ariberto had 23brought the see of milan was the brink of a signal downfall. the greatest, he was also the last of the strong ecclesiastical princes of milan. silently, steadily during these last centuries of revived vigour and prosperity a new force had been developing in the city, and acquiring conscious existence—the people. the wars of ariberto’s reign had endowed this force with the knowledge of arms and a sense of its own power. it was the nameless, irresistible will of the masses of the citizens which had carried ariberto to victory over the emperor, and this very victory tended to the undoing of the archbishop and his order, by weakening the feudal system with which the episcopal and aristocratic power of milan was now inextricably bound up. it had been the part of the church of st. ambrose to give the consecrating impulse and inspiration to the revolt of the new world against the decaying order of the roman empire, and under its latest representative to lead the city, as we have just seen, to victory over the head of feudalism. but now in its turn this great force for civilisation and humanity was to be corrupted by temporal power and possession—to renounce its mission as guide and sanctifier, and assume instead the part of opposition to the vital and progressive elements of the community. ariberto and his clergy were, in fact, the representatives in milan of feudalism and aristocracy. the hierarchy of st. ambrose was composed of the great nobles of the city, in whose families the high ecclesiastical offices and benefices had became hereditary possessions. these arch-priests, arch-deacons, cimiliarchs, decumani—the cardinals or ordinaries, as the highest orders of the clergy were called—were great feudal magnates, forming the strongest class of the milanese nobility. ranged beneath them in ecclesiastic and feudal rank were the lesser clergy, just as the secular aristocracy was divided 24into the two degrees of captains—capitani—and their vassals, called vavasours—valvassori. below these came the undistinguished masses of the people, merchants, artisans, and peasants, mostly serfs, and all absolutely subjected to the arbitrary government of the nobles.

the first revolt against this system was that already mentioned, which resulted in the battle of campo malo, and arose within the privileged class itself, being an attempt of the valvassori and minor clergy to shake off the heavy yoke of their feudal superiors. but a much more fatal discord in the community began in 1042, when the whole populace joined with the discontented valvassori, and broke out into fierce rebellion against the nobles. one lanzone, a noble who had deserted his own order, was their leader. a civil war raged for many months, filling the streets with daily tumult and bloodshed, and at last the archbishop and the magnates were forced to abandon the city. invoking the aid of the nobles in the neighbouring communities, they returned with a strong army and invested the city. the struggle was waged with hideous ferocity on both sides, neither giving mercy to prisoners or wounded. the besiegers built six great strongholds round the walls, commanding the principal gates, and effectually shutting out all succour of food or arms. two long and terrible years went by, till the plight of the citizens grew desperate. pallid and lean from famine and sickness, still they fought on with invincible souls, in the midst of the deserted palaces and falling towers of this city which, the chronicler tells us, no longer seemed, as of yore, the seat of noble kings, but rather a desolate babylon. at last lanzone resolved to go to germany and seek the help of conrad’s successor, henry iii. but the emperor, mindful of his father’s experience of milan, would only grant it 25on condition that his army should occupy the city, and that the people should swear fealty to himself. but the new-born democracy, groping its way to liberty through a thousand obstacles, instinctively rejected these conditions, preferring its native tyrants to a foreign yoke. lanzone skilfully used the fear of imperial interference to persuade the besiegers to agree to a reconciliation. peace was concluded, all mutual wrongs being forgiven, the nobles restored to their homes and possessions, and a share in the government secured to the people.

the one sacrifice offered upon the altar of this new covenant between the classes was the leader lanzone himself, who, at the first opportunity, was arrested and put to death by the aristocratic party. but his work was done, and the foundation of the future republic had been laid. archbishop ariberto, now ill and aged, had taken refuge during the troubles at monza, and returned to his own city, only to die (1045). his career fitly closes with the first signs of the collapse of the social order which he embodied.