Still it must not be forgotten that the wars of Investitures, while they
developed the independent spirit and the military energies of the
Republics, penetrated Italy with the vice of party conflict. The
ineradicable divisions of Guelf and Ghibelline were a heavy price to pay
for a step forward on the path of emancipation; nor was the
ecclesiastical revolution, which tended to Italianize the Papacy, while
it magnified its cosmopolitan ascendency, other than a source of evil to
the nation.

The forces liberated in the cities by these wars brought the Consuls to
the front. The Bishops had undermined the feudal fabric of the kingdom,
depressed the Counts, and restored the Roman towns to prosperity. During
the war both Popolo and Commune grew in vigor, and their Consuls began
to use the authority that had been conquered by the prelates. At first
the Consuls occupied a subordinate position as men of affairs and
notaries, needed to transact the business of the mercantile inhabitants.
They now took the lead as political agents of the first magnitude,
representing the city in its public acts, and superseding the
ecclesiastics. The Popolo was enlarged by the admission of new burgher
families, and the ruling caste, though still oligarchical, became more
fairly representative of the inhabitants. This progress was inevitable,
when we remember that the cities had been organized for warfare, and
that, except their Consuls, they had no officials who combined civil
and military functions. Under the jurisdiction of the Consuls Roman law
was everywhere substituted for Lombard statutes, and another strong blow
was thus dealt against decaying feudalism. The school of Bologna
eclipsed the university of Pavia. Justinian's Code was studied with
passionate energy, and the Italic people enthusiastically reverted to
the institutions of their past. In the fable of the Codex of the
_Pandects_ brought by Pisa from Amalfi we can trace the fervor of this
movement, whereby the Romans of the cities struggled after resurrection.

One of the earliest manifestations of municipal vitality was the war of
city against city, which began to blaze with fury in the first half of
the twelfth century, and endured so long as free towns lasted to
perpetuate the conflict. No sooner had the burghs established themselves
beneath the presidency of their Consuls than they turned the arms they
had acquired in the war of independence, against their neighbors. The
phenome