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who had been a missionary in Norway, became Pope two years after the accession of Barbarossa, and was, at first, on good terms with him. They were reconciled by a common enmity. The city of Rome claimed independence from both alike, and, as a help in the struggle, had invited a saintly heretic, Arnold of Brescia.1 His heresy was very grave: he maintained that 'clerks who have estates, bishops who hold fiefs, monks who possess property, cannot be saved'. He held this view because he thought that the clergy ought to devote themselves entirely to spiritual matters. No one questioned his sincere austerity, although he was accounted wicked on account of his heresy. St Bernard, who vehemently opposed him, said, 'He neither eats nor drinks, but only, like the Devil, hungers and thirsts for the blood of souls.' Hadrian's predecessor in the papacy had written to Barbarossa to complain that Arnold supported the popular faction, which wished to elect one hundred senators and two consuls, and to have an Emperor of their own. Frederick, who was setting out for Italy, was naturally scandalized. The Roman demand for communal liberty, which was encouraged by Arnold, led to a riot in which a cardinal was killed. The newly-elected Pope Hadrian thereupon placed Rome under an interdict. It was Holy Week, and superstition got the better of the Romans; they submitted, and promised to banish Arnold. He hid, but was captured by the Emperor's troops. He was burnt, and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber, for fear of their being preserved as holy relics. After a delay caused by Frederick's unwillingness to hold the Pope's bridle and stirrup while he dismounted, the Pope crowned the Emperor in 1155 amid the resistance of the populace, which was quelled with great slaughter.

The honest man being disposed of, the practical politicians were free to resume their quarrel.

The Pope, having made peace with the Normans, ventured in 1157 to break with the Emperor. For twenty years there was almost continuous war between the Emperor on the one side, and the Pope with the Lombard cities on the other. The Normans mostly supported the Pope. The bulk of the fighting against the Emperor was done by the Lombard League, which spoke of 'liberty' and was inspired by intense popular feeling. The Emperor besieged various cities, and in 1162 even captured Milan, which he razed to the ground, compelling its citizens to live elsewhere. But five years later the League rebuilt Milan and the former inhabitants returned. In this same year, the Emperor, duly provided with an antipope,2 marched on Rome with a great army. The Pope fled, and his cause seemed desperate, but pestilence destroyed Frederick's army, and he returned to Germany a solitary fugitive. Although not only Sicily, but the Greek Emperor, now sided with the

Lombard League, Barbarossa made another attempt, ending in his defeat at the battle of Legnano in 1176. After this he was compelled to make peace, leaving to the cities all the substance of liberty. In the conflict between Empire and papacy, however, the terms of peace gave neither party complete victory.

Barbarossa's end was seemly. In 1189 he went on the third Crusade, and in the following year he died.

The rise of free cities is what proved of most ultimate importance in this long strife. The power of the Emperor was associated with the decaying feudal system; the power of the Pope, though still growing, was largely dependent upon the world's need of him as an antagonist to the Emperor, and therefore decayed when the Empire ceased to be a menace; but the power of the cities was new, a result of economic progress, and a source of new political forms. Although this does not appear in the twelfth century, the Italian cities, before long, developed a non-clerical culture which reached the very highest levels in literature, in art, and in science. All this was rendered possible by their successful resistance to Barbarossa.

All the great cities of Northern Italy lived by trade, and in the twelfth century the more settled conditions made traders more prosperous