Italy in the Middle Ages

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The history of Italy in the Middle Ages can be roughly defined as the time between the

In the 11th century, in the Northern and Central parts of the peninsula, began a political development unique to Italy, the transformation of medieval communes into powerful city-states, many of them, modelled on ancient Roman Republicanism. Cities such as Venice, Milan, Genoa, Florence, Siena, Pisa, Bologna among others, rose to great political power, becoming major financial and trading centers. These states paved the way for the Italian Renaissance and the end of the perceived obscurity of the Middle Ages.^[3]

After the three decades of

The precarious balance between these powers came to an end in 1494 as the duke of Milan

Italy was invaded by the

The eastern half of the Empire, now centred on Constantinople, invaded Italy in the early 6th century, and the generals of emperor Justinian, Belisarius and Narses, conquered the Ostrogothic kingdom after years of warfare, ending in 552. This conflict, known as the Gothic Wars, destroyed much of the town life that had survived the barbarian invasions. Town life did not disappear, but they became smaller and considerably more primitive than they had been in classical Roman times.^[11] Subsistence agriculture employed the bulk of the Italian population. Wars, famines, and disease epidemics had a dramatic effect on the demographics of Italy. The agricultural estates of the Roman era did not disappear. They produced an agricultural surplus that was sold in towns; however slavery was replaced by other labour systems such as serfdom.

The withdrawal of Byzantine armies allowed another Germanic people, the Lombards, to invade Italy. Cividale del Friuli was the first main centre to fall, while the Byzantine resistance concentrated in the coast areas. The Lombards soon overran most of the peninsula, establishing a Kingdom with capital in Pavia, divided into a series of dukedoms. The areas in central-northern Italy which remained under Byzantine control (mostly the current Lazio and Romagna, plus a short corridor between Umbria that connected them, as well as Liguria) became the Exarchate of Ravenna. Southern Italy, with the exception of Apulia, current Calabria and Sicily, were also occupied by the two semi-independent Lombard duchies of Spoleto and Benevento.^[12] Under the imperial authority remained also much of the ports, which eventually turned into actually independent city-states (Genoa, Pisa, Venice, Amalfi).^[13]

Rise of the Patriarchate of Rome

The Church (and especially the bishop of Rome, by now styled the pope), had played an important political role since the time of Constantine.^[14]

In the politically unstable situation after the fall of the western empire, the Church often became the only stable institution and the only source of learning in western Europe. Even the barbarians had to rely on clerics in order to administer their conquests. Furthermore, the Catholic

After the Lombard invasion, the popes were nominally subject to the eastern emperor, but often received little help from Constantinople, and had to fill the lack of stately power, providing essential services (ex. food for the needy) and protecting Rome from Lombard incursions; in this way, the popes started building an independent state.[16]

Early Middle Ages (8th to 9th centuries)

Collapse of the Exarchate

At the end of the 8th century the popes definitely aspired to independence, and found a way to achieve it by allying with the

In 751 the Lombards seized Ravenna and the Exarchate of Ravenna was abolished. This ended the Byzantine presence in central Italy (although some coastal cities and some areas in south Italy remained under Byzantine control until the 11th century). Facing a new Lombard offensive, the papacy appealed to the Franks for aid. In 756 Frankish forces defeated the Lombards and gave the papacy legal authority over all of central Italy, thus creating the Papal States. However, the remainder of Italy stayed under Lombard (such as Benevento and Spoleto) or Byzantine (such as Calabria, Apulia and Sicily) control.^[18]

The Frankish (Carolingian) Empire

In 774, upon a Papal invitation, the Franks invaded the Kingdom of Italy and finally annexed the Lombards; as a reward the Frankish king Charlemagne received papal support. Later, on December 25, 800, Charlemagne was also crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by the pope, triggering controversy and disputes over the Roman name. A war between the two empires soon followed; in 812 the Byzantines agreed to recognize the existence of two Roman Empires in return for an assurance that the remaining Byzantine possessions in Italy would be uncontested.^[19]

Throughout this period, some coastal regions, and all of southern Italy, remained under Byzantine or Lombard control. The imperial authority never extended much south of the Italian Peninsula. Southern Italy was divided amongst the two Lombards duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, who accepted Charlemagne's suzerainty only formally (812), and the Byzantine Empire. Coastal cities like Gaeta, Amalfi, Naples on the Tyrrhenian Sea, and Venice on the Adriatic Sea, were enclaves who were becoming increasingly independent from Byzantium. A conquest of Benevento, otherwise, would have meant the total encompassment of the Papal territories, and probably Charlemagne thought it was good for his relationships with the Pope to avoid such a move. The age of Charlemagne was one of stability for Italy, though it was generally dominated by non-Italian interests. The separation with the Eastern world continued to increase. Leo III was the first Pope to date his Bulls from the year of Charlemagne's reign (795) instead of those of Byzantine emperors. This process of isolation from the Eastern Empire and connection with the Western world of France and Germany, which had started three centuries before, was completed at the beginning of the 9th century. Sicily, Calabria, Puglia and Venice were the main exceptions to this rule.^[20]

After the death of Charlemagne (814) the new empire soon disintegrated under his weak successors. The equilibrium created through the great emperor's charisma fell apart. This crisis was due also to the emergence of external forces, including the Saracen attacks and the rising power of the marine republics. Charlemagne had announced his division of the Empire in 806: the Lombard-Frank reign, together with Bavaria and Alamannia, was to be handed over to his son Pepin of Italy.

After Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious died in 840, the treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the empire. Louis' eldest surviving son Lothair I became Emperor and ruler of the Central Franks. His three sons in turn divided this kingdom between them, and Northern Italy became the Kingdom of Italy under Louis II, Holy Roman Emperor in 839.

The first half of the 9th century saw other troubles for Italy as well. In 827,

With Charlemagne's conquest of 774, the north of Italy was politically separated from the south completely. Though the Byzantines had continued to hold most of Apulia and Calabria and the Lombard duchies of the south had been aloof of Pavian policies for a century, the situation was exacerbated by the loss of a centralising Lombard authority in the north.

Creation of independent moieties (774–849)

Under Arechis II of Benevento and his successors, it was the Beneventan policy to pay homage to the Carolingian emperors but ignore their rulings. As a result, De facto independence was achieved from Frankish as well as Byzantine authority. The Duchy of Benevento reached its territorial peak under Sicard in the 830s. At his time, the Mezzogiorno was suffering the ravages of the Saracens, against whom Sicard warred constantly. He also warred against his Byzantine neighbours, especially Sorrento, Naples, and Amalfi. It was in a war with Naples that Duke Andrew II first called in Saracen mercenaries.^[21]

In 839, Sicard was assassinated and a civil war broke out which illustrated the nature of political power in the south. It was still largely in the hands of the land-owning aristocracy, who had the power to choose a prince. In 839, some chose

In the

In Gaeta, as in Naples, the violent situation inland required new power structures to maintain Byzantine authority. The Gaetans received their first imperial Byzantine

Period of confusion (849–915)

The period following the Beneventan civil war was one of confusion, brought on by the independence movements in the various cities and provinces and by the Saracen onslaught. In Salerno, a palace coup removed Siconulf's successor Sico II in 853 and destabilised that principality until a new dynasty, the Dauferidi, came to power in 861.

In 852, the Saracens took Bari and founded an emirate there. Greek power being significantly threatened, as well as Adriatic commerce, the Byzantine emperor requested an alliance from Louis II of Italy. Similarly, the new prince of Benevento, Adelchis, an independent-minded ruler, also sought his aid. Louis came down and retook Bari in 871 after a great siege. Louis then tried to set up greater control over all the south by garrisoning his troops in Beneventan fortresses. The response of Adelchis to this action was to imprison and rob the emperor while he was staying the princely palace at Benevento. A month later, the Saracens had landed with a new invasive force and Adelchis released Louis to lead the armies against it. Adelchis forced Louis to vow never to re-enter Benevento with an army or to take revenge for his detention. Louis went to Rome in 872 and was released from his oath by Pope Adrian II on 28 May. His attempts to punish Adelchis were not very successful. Adelchis vacillated between nominal fealty to the Carolingian and Byzantine emperors, but, in fact, by his alterations to the Edictum Rothari, he acknowledged himself as the legitimate Lombard "king."

The successors of Adelchis were weak and the principality of Benevento declined just as Salernitan power was beginning to make itself felt. Guaifer of Salerno was on friendly terms with the Saracens, a habit which annoyed the popes and often put a ruler at odds with his neighbours. The south Italian lords continually rotating in their allegiances. Guaifer's successor, Guaimar I, made war on the Saracens. Guaifer had originally associated Guaimar with him as co-ruler, a practice which became endemic to the south and was especially evident in Capua.

Italian states from the 10th century

The Holy Roman Empire

In 951 King

Iron Crown in Pavia as a prelude to the visit to Rome to be crowned Emperor by the Pope.^[24][25]

The Emperor, or his subordinate ruler of the

Matilda of Canossa in 1115. This left a power vacuum – increasingly filled by the papacy and by the bishops, as well as by the increasingly wealthy Italian cities, which gradually came to dominate the surrounding countryside. The papacy went through an age of decadence, which ended only in 999 when emperor Otto III selected Silvester II

as pope.

Iron Crown of Lombardy, for centuries a symbol of the kings of Italy

Upon the death of Emperor

Victor Emmanuel II

in 1861.

Henry's Salian successor Conrad II tried to confirm his dominion against Archbishop Aribert of Milan and other Italian aristocrats (seniores). While besieging Milan in 1037, he issued the Constitutio de feudis in order to secure the support of the vasvassores petty gentry, whose fiefs he declared hereditary. Indeed, Conrad could stable his rule, however, the imperial supremacy in Italy remained contested.

Southern Italy

Under the Macedonian dynasty, Byzantine power experienced a recovery; and the impact of this was felt in southern Italy. During the late 9th century the amount of territory under direct Byzantine rule (which in the early 9th century was limited to the toe and heel of the peninsula) expanded dramatically. The Catepanate of Italy was set up to administer the newly acquired territory. The rest of Southern Italy remained divided among the Lombard kings and the Italian cities. Both sets of principalities were de facto independent but paid nominal allegiance to Byzantium.

The Southern Italy growth and change stagnated for a number of reasons. In 878 the Arabs captured the crucial city of Syracuse, and by 965 the entire island was under Arab rule.^[26] The reminisce of the Lombards laws caused trouble in Salerno. The urban populations were upset with Byzantine taxation, resulting in an uprising in Apulia in the early 980s. In 990, deadly earthquakes directly affected two cities, Benevento and Capua.^[27]

High Middle Ages (11th–13th centuries)

In the 11th century, the

Emperor Manuel I Komnenos to reassert its authority in Southern Italy. However, the attempt failed, and in 1158, the Byzantines left Italy.^[28]

Unlike the

Norman conquest of England

(1066), which took place over the course of a few years after one decisive battle, the conquest of Southern Italy was the product of decades and many battles, few decisive. Many territories were conquered independently, and only later were all unified into one state. Compared to the conquest of England, it was unplanned and unorganised, but just as permanent.

Thanks to the marriage between the Emperor Henry VI and Constance, heiress to the Sicilian throne, the Kingdom of Sicily was in a personal union with the Holy Roman Empire from 1194 to 1254. The Kingdom of Sicily would last under various dynasties until the 19th century.

Between the 12th and 13th centuries, Italy developed a peculiar political pattern, significantly different from feudal Europe north of the Alps.^[29] As no dominant powers emerged as they did in other parts of Europe, the oligarchic city-state became the prevalent form of government.^[29] Keeping both direct church control and imperial power at arm's length, the many independent city states prospered through commerce, based on early capitalist principles ultimately creating the conditions for the artistic and intellectual changes produced by the Renaissance.^[30]

Italian towns transitioned out from

merchant republics enjoyed relative political freedom that boosted scientific and artistic advancement.^[33]

The southern states' knights and mercenaries were internationally renowned and developed in reaction to the statecraft and knights of the Low Countries, the Kingdom of France, and the Holy Roman Empire.^[34]

Amalfi, the most known maritime republics.
Right: Trade routes and colonies of the Genoese (red) and Venetian

(green) empires.

Thanks to their favorable position between East and West, Italian cities such as Venice became international trading and banking hubs and intellectual crossroads. Milan, Florence and Venice, as well as several other Italian city-states, played a crucial innovative role in financial development, devising the main instruments and practices of banking and the emergence of new forms of social and economic organization.[33]

During the same period, Italy saw the rise of the

Maritime Republics: Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi, Ragusa, Ancona, Gaeta and the little Noli.^[35] From the 11th to the 13th centuries these cities built fleets of ships both for their own protection and to support extensive trade networks across the Mediterranean, leading to an essential role in the Crusades. The maritime republics, especially Venice and Genoa, soon became Europe's main gateways to trade with the East, establishing colonies as far as the Black Sea and often controlling most of the trade with the Byzantine Empire

and the Islamic Mediterranean world.

The papacy regained its authority, and started a long struggle with the empire, about both ecclesiastical and secular matters. The first episode was the Investiture Controversy. In the 12th century those Italian cities which lay in the Holy Roman Empire launched a successful effort to win autonomy from the Holy Roman Empire. In the north, a Lombard League of communes launched a successful effort to win autonomy from the Holy Roman Empire, defeating Emperor Frederick Barbarossa at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. This made north Italy a land of quasi-independent or independent city-states until the 19th century (see Italian city-states and history of every city). The revolts were funded by the Byzantine Empire, which hoped to expel the Germanic peoples from Italy; this sponsorship was, like the invasion of the south, part of a 12th-century Byzantine effort to regain the influence it had once held on the peninsula during the reign of Justinian I.

Late Middle Ages and Renaissance (14th century to 1559)

Further information: Italian Renaissance and Italian Wars

In the 14th century, Northern Italy and upper-central Italy were divided into a number of warring

Ghibellines. The county of Savoy expanded its territory into the peninsula in the late Middle Ages

, while Florence developed into a highly organized commercial and financial city-state, becoming for many centuries the European capital of silk, wool, banking and jewelry.

Warfare between the states was common, invasion from outside Italy confined to intermittent sorties of

Early Modern period in Italy. In the 14th century, Italy presents itself as divided between the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily in the south, the Papal States in Central Italy, and the Maritime republics

in the north.

The

Black Plague ravaged Europe during the 1340s-50s, wiping out almost half the continent's population. Particularly detrimental was the fact that most of the victims were young adults in their prime working years, which left behind an "hourglass" population structure comprised heavily of children and older people with fewer in-between. The widespread belief of medieval Europe having a "pyramid" population where most people were under 45 was not completely true and in fact varied widely from region to region. France traditionally had high birth rates, but Italy's fertility was lower to begin with and especially after the Plague had ravaged the region, many cities such as Florence, Verona, and Arezzo

had populations where more than 15% of people were over the age of 60.

Since overall life expectancy in Europe did not increase by any significant margin during this period, the aging cohort in some areas can be almost completely blamed on the effects of the Plague. Wealthy households had larger numbers of children than the poor. For example, in the early 15th century, the average age of Florence's population among the lower classes was 25 while the upper classes had an average age of just 17. The countryside became swiftly depopulated after the Plague as well due to surviving young people moving en masse to the cities.

The Italian Renaissance originates in 14th-century Tuscany, centered in the cities of Florence and Siena. It later had a great impact in Venice, where the remains of ancient Greek culture were brought together, providing humanist scholars with new texts. The Renaissance later had a significant effect on Rome, which was ornamented with some structures in the new all'antico mode, then was largely rebuilt by humanist 16th-century popes.

Beginning in 1320 an upheaval in the Florentine wool industry began that would see wool textiles become Italy's most important manufacture for export. By the late 14th century Florence rivaled even the Low Countries of Flanders and Brabant and reigned supreme in the marketplaces of the Mediterranean.^[36]

During this time, the powers of the ruler of states expanded as some of the last feudal institutions faded away.^[37] However, power was also put into the hands of smaller branches of families than the amount that feudalism and later pre-Renaissance political systems allowed for, causing friction and periods of noble hostility against Italian rulers and other noble families.^[37]

The Italian Renaissance peaked in the mid-16th century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and even spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, and the English Renaissance.

See also

• Giudicati
• Medieval Corsica
• Italian city-states
• Maritime republics

References

1. ^ "Storia dell'Esarcato d'Italia". www.homolaicus.com. Retrieved 2021-09-17.
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3. ^ "The End of Europe's Middle Ages - Italy's City-States". www.faculty.umb.edu. Retrieved 2021-09-16.
4. ^ "italica, Lega nell'Enciclopedia Treccani". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2021-09-16.
5. ^ "BiblioToscana - Lega Italica (1454)". biblio.toscana.it. Retrieved 2021-09-16.
6. ^ Will Durant refers to the period from 867 to 1049 as the "nadir of the papacy"
7. ^ ^{a b} "Odoacre, Zenone e Teodorico" (in Italian). 11 September 2018. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
8. ^ Dizionario biografico Treccani. "Odoacre". Retrieved 13 December 2021.
9. ^ Mark L. Johnson (1988). "Toward a History of Theoderic's Building Program". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. Vol. 42. p. 74.
10. ^ Mark L. Johnson (1988). "Toward a History of Theoderic's Building Program". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. Vol. 42. pp. 76–77.
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13. ^ "Le 4 repubbliche marinare: Amalfi, Pisa, Genova e Venezia" (in Italian). 14 November 2021. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
14. ^ "La Chiesa di Roma prima e dopo Costantino. Da Vittore (189-199) a Liberio (352-366)" (in Italian). Retrieved 13 December 2021.
15. ISBN 9788858116814
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16. ^ Edoardo Martinori, Annali della Zecca di Roma. Serie del Senato romano. Parte prima, p. 37 (256) (In Italian).
17. ^ "Dai Merovingi ai Pipinidi" (in Italian). 24 October 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
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20. ^ "L'età carolingia" (in Italian). Retrieved 13 December 2021.
21. ^ "Breve cronologia degli attacchi saraceni (termine con cui si designano gli attacchi arabo-islamici del primo millennio) nel Mediterraneo, nella penisola italiana, in quella ispanica, in Provenza e sulle Alpi" (in Italian). Retrieved 13 December 2021.
22. ^ "Longobardi" (in Italian). Retrieved 13 December 2021.
23. ^ "Domini bizantini in Italia" (in Italian). Retrieved 13 December 2021.
24. ^ Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures of Political Rule. Cambridge University Press. p. 116.
25. ^ Orioli, R. Fra Dolcino. Nascita, vita e morte di un'eresia medievale. Jaca Book. p. 233.
26. ^ "La Sicilia Araba" (in Italian). Retrieved 13 December 2021.
27. ISBN 9780812205435
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28. ^ "La lunga decadenza dell'Impero Bizantino" (PDF) (in Italian). Retrieved 13 December 2021.
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30. ^ Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason (Random House, 2005).
31. ^ Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol I: The Renaissance; vol II: The Age of Reformation, Cambridge University Press, p. 69
32. ^ Martin, J. and Romano, D., Venice Reconsidered, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 2000
33. ^ ^{a b} Ferguson, Niall, The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World. Penguin, 2008
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35. ^ Armando Lodolini Le repubbliche del mare, Roma, Biblioteca di storia patria, 1967.
36. ^ Huang, Angela Ling, and Carsten Jahnke, eds. Textiles and the Medieval Economy: Production, Trade, and Consumption of Textiles, 8th–16th Centuries. Vol. 16. Oxbow Books, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dm0t.
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Further reading

• Cristina La Rocca (Ed.): Italy in the Early Middle Ages: 476-1000 (Short Oxford History of Italy), Oxford 2002.
• Ruggiero, Guido. The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento (Cambridge University Press, 2015). 648 pp. online review

History of Italy during the Middle Ages

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