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THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE SECURES THE LIBERTIES OF THE LOMBARD CITIES

A.D. 1183

ERNEST F. HENDERSON

Frederick, Duke of Swabia, and his brother Conrad, Duke of
the Franks, grandsons of Henry IV, were the hereditary and
dynastic successors to the throne of Germany, when with the
death of Henry V in 1125 the male line of the Franconian
dynasty ended. The brothers demanded the assertion of the
elective right in the imperial office, and Lothair, Duke of
Saxony, was elected emperor of Germany.

Lothair died in 1138. His son-in-law, the Wolf or Welf
nobleman, Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria, whom Lothair had
nominated as his successor, was opposed by the Swabian
faction--also known as the Waiblingen faction--from the
Franconian village in which the Swabian duke Frederick was
born.

The Waiblingen faction elected as emperor of Germany Conrad
the Crusader, in whom began the Hohenstaufen dynasty, so
named from the Swabian family seat on the lofty Staufen hill
rising from the Rems River.

From this event dates the strife of the Welfs and
Waiblingens, who in Italy became known as Guelfs and
Ghibellines. The chief opponents in the long strife that
ensued were the Guelf dukes, Henry the Proud and Henry the
Lion, and the Ghibelline emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Frederick Barbarossa (Redbeard) succeeded his father Conrad
in 1152, and began a reign which was disturbed by wars with
his nobility and by expeditions into Italy to subdue the
revolts of the city republics of Lombardy against imperial
authority. During his first expedition to Italy, 1154-1155,
Barbarossa soon crushed all opposition and was crowned
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, at Rome, by Pope Hadrian
IV. During his second expedition, 1158-1162, he destroyed
the city of Milan and dispersed the inhabitants, who sought
refuge in cities with which they had formerly been at
enmity. Barbarossa's violence antagonized the Italians, and
they combined in the Lombard League to drive him out of
Italy. He was excommunicated by Pope Alexander III, who
succeeded Hadrian in 1159, and to inaugurate the league a
town named Alessandria in honor of the Pope was founded on
the Piedmont frontier. In the expedition of 1166-1168
Barbarossa, who had set up an antipope, captured R