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GELFOS Y GIBELINOS: LOS HOHENSTAUFEN EN ITALIA Age of Dante JH
Moran Cruz
(Traduccin)
La divisin de facciones en Italia entre las fuerzas imperiales y
papales comenz ya en el reinado de Federico I (Barbarroja), que
rein desde 1154 hasta 1190, cuando muri en el sureste de Turqua en
su camino a Jerusaln durante la Tercera Cruzada. Frederick, quien
fue el primero en llamarse a s mismo el emperador del Sacro Imperio
Romano, proceda de la familia Hohenstaufen con territorios en
Suabia y en Borgoa (es decir, las zonas del sur de Alemania).
Frederick afirm agresivamente sus derechos imperiales en Italia,
respaldado por los recin descubiertos . Esto introduce en las
tensiones que ya existan entre camarillas gobernantes y familias
rivales en los relativamente nuevos gobiernos comunales del norte y
centro de Italia. Frederick, ofreciendo las cortes imperiales como
un lugar para la obtencin de la restauracin de los derechos, atrajo
a un nmero de ciudades y facciones que se hicieron a favor de
Hohenstaufen italianos; que fueron ms tarde para ser etiquetados
Gibelinos.
Cuando Federico I muri en la cruzada en 1190, dej a su hijo
Enrique VI que estaba casado con Constanza, heredera de Sicilia.
Enrique muri en 1197, dejando a su viuda (que muri al ao siguiente)
y un hijo de tres aos llamado Frederick. Un imperio alemn que se
extendi por toda Italia, con una presencia en el sur de Italia y de
los derechos en todo el norte de Italia, era una clara amenaza para
el papado. Pero el Papa que en 1198 era Inocencio III fue uno de
los ms grandes de papas medievales y el arquitecto de una monarqua
papal. Cuando el emperador Enrique VI muri en 1197, Sicilia
separada de Alemania, estaba dbilmente gobernada por Constanza, la
esposa de Henry, y su hijo. Esto a la larga result en el
establecimiento de una relacin de vasallaje con el papado tal que,
cuando Constanza muri en 1198, Inocencio se convirti en tutor de
Federico. En teora, por lo tanto, por 1199 el papado estaba en una
posicin enormemente fortalecida, no slo en Sicilia, sino en todo el
centro de Italia, donde Inocencio III haba consolidado un estado
papal que le llegaba desde Ravenna a Roma.
Luego, en 1198 en Alemania, hubo una eleccin disputada de
emperador. Felipe de Suabia (un Hohenstaufen y to de la joven
hurfano Frederick) y Otto de Sajonia (de la casa Welf) fueron
elegidos por las partes separadas. Karl Hampe, medievalista alemn,
llama a esta infeliz doble eleccin el evento ms mortal en la
historia medieval de Alemania. Intereses papales fueron mejor
servidos por Otto, que estaba dispuestos a aceptar las demandas
papales para el territorio en Italia. En 1201 Inocencio escribi a
los electores alemanes que, en virtud de la disputada eleccin, l
(como Papa), por la autoridad de Dios y San Pedro, tena el voto
decisivo en cuanto a la eleccin imperial. En este sentido,
reivindic la superioridad espiritual sobre el reino temporal y un
derecho apostlico a juzgar la idoneidad de los reyes y emperadores.
Otto se hizo debidamente emperador. Eventualmente, sin embargo,
Felipe de Suabia fue asesinado, y Otto reneg de sus promesas y
procedi a invadir Italia. Inocencio, una vez ms afirmar su
autoridad para
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deponer a los gobernantes inadecuados, excomulg a Otto, con el
apoyo electoral de Federico y su coronacin en 1215. Frederick
prometi Inocencio que, tras su coronacin como emperador, l
renunciara a Sicilia. Inocencio muri antes de que esto se produjera
-y de hecho nunca se produjo.
La divisin entre Otto y Frederick (y luego entre Federico con el
papado) dio lugar a la divisin entre las fuerzas Gelfas y Gibelinas
que iba a desgarrar Italia para el prximo siglo. A finales del XIII
y principios del siglo XIV, puede que los italianos ya no supieran
dnde se haba originado esta divisin. Como sabemos, Dino Campagne
cree que se origin dentro de Florencia, con el asesinato de 1.215
Buondelmonte. Saba Malaspina, escribi su Historia de Asuntos de
Sicilia a finales del siglo XIII ofreci otra explicacin popular:
Giovanni Villani, un cronista florentino del siglo XIV seal que,
Otros florentinos sugirieron que Gibellino deriva del latn Gerentes
bellum (haciendo la guerra a la iglesia) y Gelfos deriva de
Gerentes fidem (manteniendo la fe con la iglesia) . Tal vez con
mayor precisin, 1el noble romano Matteo Orsini lleg a la conclusin
de que realmente no entenda lo que era un gelfo o gibelino,
mientras el Papa Benedicto XII (1334-1342) seal, a propsito de
Guelfism, que
El trmino viene de Welf, la familia noble alemana a la que
perteneca Otto IV, mientras que era una representacin de
italianizado , el castillo de los duques de Hohenstaufen Suabia. La
primera aparicin de los trminos se produce despus de 1215, cuando
Federico II y el papado primero se enfrentaron. reas de Italia, que
se convirtieron en Gelfos se entendan generalmente como pro-papal;
los que se convirtieron en Gibelinos se entendan generalmente como
pro-imperial. Si una ciudad era Gelfa (por ejemplo, Florencia), sus
ciudades enemigas tradicionales (por ejemplo, Arezzo o Pisa) podran
convertirse de forma natural en Gibelinas. Haba una ligera
tendencia a que Guelfismo estuviera asociado con un gobierno
popular, pero no siempre (por ejemplo, los Gibelinos de Pisa
tuvieron un gobierno popular; Gelfos de Orvieto fueron gobernado
por nobles). Afiliacin se convirti en una cuestin de costumbre y la
tradicin, y algunas ciudades italianas (Venecia y Roma) no se
comprometieron con ninguna de las partes, como fue el caso de
algunos papas. Estas divisiones, sin embargo, poco conocidos o
sinembargo generada histricamente, fueron las que desgarraron
Italia hasta bien entrado el siglo XIV. 1Para los ejemplos
examinados arriba, ver Brian Pullan, A History of Early Renaissance
Italy, p. 24
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El gobernante que galvaniz los gibelinos fue Federico II.
Hurfano a los 4 aos, Frederick haba pasado entre los barones
Sicilianos, y creci en condiciones caticas en las calles de Palermo
donde se empap de una mezcla de Musulmanes, Normandos, Bizantinos y
culturas italianas. Su personaje, era una combinacin de
determinacin de acero y la misantropa, fascin a sus contemporneos y
sigue fascinando historiadores. Segn el cronista Mateo de Pars, que
se reuni con l, que l era el En la evaluacin de Frederick, hay que
tener en cuenta que las pruebas sobreviven de su reinado son
principalmente propaganda. Pocas crnicas o registros
administrativos han sobrevivido.
Frederick hablaba seis idiomas, devor las ideas, y escribi
libros y poesa. Fue uno de los primeros en utilizar la lengua
verncula italiana para la poesa; de hecho, Dante lo etiquet el
padre de la poesa italiana. Su biblioteca tena obras rabes,
latinas, griegas, hebreas, y; patrocinaba abogados, retricos y
artistas y promovi la traduccin de textos rabes de medicina,
matemticas, ptica, astronoma y astrologa. Un jinete experto y
experto en armas, Frederick estaba muy unidos a los animales (que
tuvo una coleccin de animales salvajes y escribi un tratado sobre
la cetrera). La inclinacin de su mente era cientfica, dirigida por
la razn y buscando pruebas en la naturaleza. Aplic estos principios
a la cra de animales y a la agricultura; mantuvo correspondencia
con el matemtico Leonardo Fibonacci y con los eruditos musulmanes y
atrajo el erudito Michael Scot a su corte. En cuanto a la religin,
un comentarista rabe observa que, una vea en la forma en que l
hablaba Hay una historia, quizs apcrifa, en la que se cuenta que
encerr a 2un criminal condenado en un barril para que los
observadores pudieran detectar como el alma dejaba el barril cuando
l muri. Los resultados llevaron al emperador a dudar de la
existencia del alma. Se aleg que l llam Cristo un impostor junto
con Moiss y Mahoma, y se le acusa de llamar a la gente los tontos
que creen en el nacimiento virginal. Es de suponer esta reputacin
de Federico como materialista (que no crean en un alma inmortal)
que llev a Dante ponerlo en Crculo 6 del Infierno con los
herejes.
Frederick era un administrador eficiente que tom un estado
previamente muy sofisticado y centralizado en Sicilia y el sur de
Italia, que haba, sin embargo, sido descuidado durante la regencia
papal, y elaborado un programa an ms sofisticada, imperial y
centralizado de gobierno. Nombr a jueces, notarios y abogados,
restringe portar armas, aument los impuestos, impuso monopolios
reales, desarroll la burocracia, afirm un mayor control sobre las
ciudades, y luego convoc la gente dos veces al ao para que pudiera
recabar informacin de impuestos y podran expresar sus quejas. Fund
la Universidad de Npoles para educar a los hombres por su servicio,
y public un cdigo de la ley, el Liber Augustalis, que exalta la
autoridad real.
Federico tuvo menos xito en Alemania. All, a pesar de algunos
esfuerzos para replicar las reformas administrativas de Sicilia,
Federico termin ofreciendo concesiones 2 David Abulafia, Federico
II: A Medieval Emperador (Oxford University Press, 1988), p.
186
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masivas a los prncipes alemanes con el fin de obtener su apoyo
para sus polticas italianas. Entonces, cuando el papado lo derroc
en 1245, muchos prncipes alemanes se rebelaron contra l. Bohemia se
hizo casi totalmente independiente, mientras que otros prncipes
usurparon lo que pocos derechos imperiales haba all. El gobierno
imperial alemn no tuvo ningn centro administrativo, y el imperio
segua siendo una mezcolanza cultural y lingstica y sin un liderazgo
efectivo. A pesar de la debilidad de su autoridad en Alemania,
Federico present como Caesar Augustus, y tambin como el hijo de
Dios, el Mesas, el hijo de la justicia. Sus propagandistas llaman
su reino una nueva Tierra Santa y su lugar de nacimiento, Jesi, la
nueva Beln; su madre era la Virgilio y su proftica Cuarta gloga se
reform para aplicar al nio nacido 26 de diciembre 1194 en Jesi.
Inicialmente sus padres le llamaron Constantino. Luego lo nombraron
Federico Roger, para simbolizar la unin de Alemania con Sicilia.
Las proclamas que salan de la corte Frederick, eran redactada en
elaborados florituras retricas (a menudo escritas por Piero delle
Vigne), proclam que l era la justicia divina, el representante de
Dios en la tierra, cuyo derecho vena de Dios. A travs del
matrimonio tambin fue rey de Jerusaln, coronado en Jerusaln en
medio de expectativas generales que tal evento presagiaba dominio
cristiano universal y el principio de una nueva era.
Dada la retrica no es de extraar que tuviera conflictos con el
papado, que lo excomulg en 1227 y 1239, predic una cruzada contra
l, y lo depuso en el Concilio de Lyon en 1245 por perjurio,
quebrantamiento de la paz, sacrilegio, y sospecha de hereja. Papa
Inocencio IV (1243-1254) justific esta deposicin dibujando en las
ideas de Gregorio VII e Inocencio III y los ejemplos de sus
declaraciones de Enrique IV y Otto IV, pero fue ms all. Inocencio
IV argument que en asuntos morales, y en todos los asuntos en los
que haba defectos, negligencias, ambigedades y las situaciones de
emergencia, la Iglesia tena el derecho de actuar. De hecho, la
historia bblica mostr que Dios gobierna al hombre y que la ley
divina requiere el sometimiento de Dios a las personas elegidas al
sacerdocio. Inocencio IV entonces lanz una campaa de propaganda y
cruzada contra Frederick, prometiendo a los soldados la absolucin
de sus pecados por su participacin. Frederick respondi a la cruzada
y la campaa de difamacin por matando a parientes y amigos del Papa
e invadiendo el centro y norte de Italia. La lucha termin con la
muerte repentina de Frederick de disentera en 1250.
En una nota final a la historia de la decadencia de
Hohenstaufen, Sicilia, por la que Federico haba luchado tan
ferozmente, fue ofrecida por el papado a Carlos de Anjou, hermano
menor del rey de Francia. El ejrcito de Carlos se traslad al sur,
derrotando y matando al gobernante Hohenstaufen (Manfred, hijo
ilegtimo de Federico II). Cuando Conradino, el ltimo de los
Hohenstaufen, fue asesinado en la batalla contra el papado en 1268,
la familia fue aniquilada, y el trono imperial permaneci vacante
hasta que Enrique VII descendi a Italia en 1311.
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(Texto original)
GELFS AND GHIBELINES: THE HOHENSTAUFEN IN ITALY Age of Dante JH
Moran Cruz The division of factions in Italy between imperial and
papal forces began as early as the reign of Frederick I
(Barbarossa), who reigned from 1154 to 1190 when he died in
southeastern Turkey on his way to Jerusalem during the Third
Crusade. Frederick, who was the first to call himself the Holy
Roman Emperor, came from the Hohenstaufen family with holdings in
Swabia and in Burgundy (i.e. the southern areas of Germany).
Frederick aggressively asserted his imperial rights in Italy,
backed by the newly discovered corpus of Roman law. This fed into
tensions that already existed between ruling cliques and rival
families in the relatively new communal governments of northern and
central Italy. Frederick, by offering the imperial courts as a
venue for gaining restoration of rights, attracted a number of
Italian cities and factions who became pro-Hohenstaufen; they were
later to be labeled Ghibelline. When Frederick I died on crusade in
1190, he left his son Henry VI who was married to Constance,
heiress of Sicily. Henry died in 1197, leaving his widow (who died
the next year) and a three-year old son named Frederick. A German
empire that straddled Italy, with a presence in southern Italy and
rights throughout northern Italy, was a clear threat to the papacy.
But the pope in 1198 (Innocent III) was one of the greatest of
medieval popes and the architect of a papal monarchy. When the
Emperor Henry VI died in 1197, Sicily separated from Germany,
descending to Constance, Henrys wife, and their son. This
eventually resulted in the establishment of a vassal relationship
with the papacy such that, when Constance died in 1198, Innocent
became Fredericks guardian. Theoretically therefore, by 1199 the
papacy was in a greatly strengthened position, not only in Sicily,
but across central Italy where Innocent III had consolidated a
papal state that reached from Ravenna to Rome. Then, in 1198 in
Germany, there was a disputed election for emperor. Philip of
Swabia (a Hohenstaufen and uncle to the young orphan Frederick) and
Otto of Saxony (of the Welf house) were elected by separate
parties. Karl Hampe, a German medievalist, calls this unhappy
double election the most fatal event in the medieval history of
Germany. Papal interests were better served by Otto, who was wiling
to agree to papal demands for territory in Italy. In 1201 Innocent
wrote to the German electors that, by virtue of the disputed
election, he (as pope), by the authority of God and St. Peter, had
the decisive vote with regard to the imperial election. In this, he
asserted spiritual superiority over the temporal realm and an
apostolic right to judge the suitability of kings and emperors.
Otto duly became emperor. Eventually, however, Philip of Swabia was
murdered, and Otto reneged on his promises and proceeded to invade
Italy. Innocent, once more asserting his authority to depose
unsuitable rulers, excommunicated Otto, supported Fredericks
election and his coronation in 1215. Frederick promised Innocent
that, upon his coronation as emperor, he would renounce Sicily.
Innocent died before this came about and in fact it never came
about. 2 The split between Otto and Frederick (and then between
Frederick and the papacy) gave rise to the
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division between Guelf and Ghibelline forces that was to rend
Italy for the next century. By the end of the thirteenth and
beginning of the fourteenth century, may Italians no longer knew
where this split originated. As we know, Dino Campagne thought that
it originated within Florence, with the 1215 murder of
Buondelmonte. Saba Malaspina, writing his History of Sicilian
Affairs in the late thirteenth century offered another popular
explanation: There is a tradition that when a woman of Lombardy was
giving birth to Manfred of the seed of Frederick, the forms of two
women appeared in the cloudy skies over Tuscany and hung like a
mist above the earth, and a great slap of thunder, as from an
echoing vault, appeared to pronounce their names together. And it
is plausibly held that - so far as anyone could tell - one was
called Guelfa and the other Ghibellina. They wrestled and pitted
their strength against each other and fought hand to hand from dawn
to high noon, and now one and now the other triumphed and trampled
her foe underfoot. Giovanni Villani, a fourteenth-century
Florentine chronicler noted that, The Guelf party is the party of
liberty, the enemy of tyranny; so that if a Guelf becomes a tyrant,
by necessity he becomes a Ghibelline. Other Florentines suggested
that Ghibelline derived from the Latin gerentes bellum (making war
upon the church) and Guelf derived from gerentes fidem (keeping
faith with the church).1 Perhaps more accurately, the Roman
nobleman Matteo Orsini concluded that he really did not understand
what a Guelf or a Ghibelline was, while Pope Benedict XII
(1334-1342) noted, apropos of Guelfism, that Italian politics are
extremely changeable. Italians want one thing one day and one
another. The term Guelf comes from Welf, the German noble family to
which Otto IV belonged, while Ghibelline was an Italianized
rendering of Waiblingen, the castle of the Hohenstaufen Dukes of
Swabia. The terms first appear after 1215 when Frederick II and the
papacy first clashed. Areas of Italy that became Guelf were
generally understood as pro-papal; those that became Ghibelline
were generally understood as pro-imperial. If a town was Guelf (for
example, Florence), a traditional enemy (for example, Arezzo or
Pisa) might naturally become Ghibelline. There was a slight
tendency for Guelphism to be associated with popular rule, but not
always (for example, Ghibelline Pisa had popular rule; Guelph
Orvieto was ruled by nobles). Affiliation became a matter of habit
and tradition, and some Italian cities (Venice and Rome) were
committed to neither side, as was true of some popes. These
divisions, however poorly understood or however historically
generated, were to rend Italy well into the fourteenth century. 1
For the above examples, see Brian Pullan, A History of Early
Renaissance Italy, p. 24 The ruler who galvanized the Ghibellines
was Frederick II. Orphaned at age 4, Frederick had been passed
around among the Sicilian barons, growing up under chaotic
conditions in the streets of Palermo where he imbibed a mix of
Muslim, Norman, Byzantine, and Italian cultures. His character, a
combination of steely determination and misanthropy, fascinated his
contemporaries and continues to fascinate historians. According to
the chronicler Matthew Paris, who met him, he was the "greatest of
the princes of the world--the bewilderment of the world and the
initiator of great change." In evaluating Frederick, keep in mind
that the surviving evidence 3 for his reign is mainly propaganda.
Few chronicles or administrative registers survive. Frederick knew
six languages, devoured ideas, and wrote books and poetry. He was
among the first to use the Italian vernacular for poetry; indeed,
Dante labeled him the father of Italian poetry. His library had
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic works; he patronized lawyers,
rhetoricians, and artists and promoted the translation of Arabic
texts in medicine, mathematics, optics, astronomy, and astrology.
An expert horseman and skilled in arms,
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Frederick was much attached to animals (he collected a menagerie
and wrote on falconry). The bent of his mind was scientific,
proceeding by reason and proofs in nature. He applied these
principles to animal breeding and to farming; he corresponded with
the mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci and with Muslim scholars and
attracted the polymath Michael Scot to his court. Regarding
religion, one Arabic commentator observed that, one saw from the
way he spoke that he was a materialist and that his Christianity
was simply a game to him."1 There is a story, perhaps apocryphal,
that he had a condemned criminal shut up in a barrel so that
observers might detect the soul leaving the barrel when he died.
The results led the emperor to doubt the existence of the soul. It
was alleged that he called Christ an imposter along with Moses and
Muhammad, and he was accused of calling people fools who believed
in the virgin birth. It is presumably this reputation of Frederick
as a materialist (who did not believe in an immortal soul) that
prompted Dante to put him in Circle 6 of the Inferno with the
heretics. Frederick was an efficient administrator who took a
previously sophisticated and centralized state in Sicily and
southern Italy, which had, however, been neglected during the papal
regency, and crafted an even more sophisticated, imperial and
centralized program of government. He appointed judges, notaries,
and lawyers himself, restricted the bearing of arms, increased
taxes, imposed royal monopolies, developed the bureaucracy,
asserted greater control over towns, and then summoned people twice
a year so that he could gather tax information and they could voice
their grievances. He founded the University of Naples to educate
men for his service, and he published a law code, the Liber
Augustalis, that exalted royal authority. Frederick was less
successful in Germany. There, despite some efforts to replicate
Sicilian administrative reforms, Frederick ended by offering
massive concessions to the German princes in order to gain their
support for his Italian policies. Then, when the papacy deposed
Frederick in 1245, many German princes revolted against him.
Bohemia became almost wholly independent, while other princes
usurped what few imperial rights there were. The German imperial
government had no administrative center, and the empire remained a
cultural and linguistic hodgepodge without effective leadership.
Despite the weakness of his authority in Germany, Frederick
presented himself as CaesarAugustus, and also as the son of God,
the Messiah, the son of justice. His propagandists called his
kingdom a new Holy Land and his birthplace, Jesi, the new
Bethlehem; his mother was the divine mother [who] gave him birth.
Virgil=s prophetic Fourth Eclogue was reshaped to apply to the
child born December 26, 1194 at Jesi. Initially his parents named
him Constantine. Then they named him Frederick Roger, to symbolize
the union of Germany with Sicily. The 4 proclamations that issued
from Frederick=s court, couched in elaborate rhetorical flourishes
(often written by Piero delle Vigne), proclaimed that he was divine
justice, God=s representative on earth, whose right came from God
alone. Through marriage he was also king of Jerusalem, crowned in
Jerusalem amid general expectations that such an event portended
universal Christian rule and the beginning of a new age. Given the
rhetoric it is not surprising that he had conflicts with the
papacy, which excommunicated him in 1227 and 1239, preached a
crusade against him, and deposed him at the Council of Lyons in
1245 for perjury, breach of the peace, sacrilege, and suspicion of
heresy. Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254) justified this deposition by
drawing upon the ideas of Gregory VII and Innocent III and the
examples of their depositions of Henry IV and Otto IV, but he went
further. Innocent IV argued that in moral matters, and in all
matters where there were defects, negligences, ambiguities, and
emergencies, the Church had the
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right to act. Indeed, biblical history showed that God governs
man and that divine law requires the subjection of God=s chosen
people to the priesthood. Innocent then launched a propaganda
campaign and crusade against Frederick, promising soldiers
absolution of sins for participating. Frederick responded to the
crusade and the defamation campaign by killing relatives and
friends of the pope and invading central and northern Italy. The
struggle ended with Frederick's sudden death from dysentery in
1250. In a final footnote to the story of Hohenstaufen decline,
Sicily, for which Frederick had fought so ferociously, was offered
by the papacy to Charles of Anjou, younger brother of the king of
France. Charles=s army moved south, defeating and killing the
Hohenstaufen ruler (Manfred, Frederick II=s illegitimate son). When
Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, was killed in battle
against the papacy in 1268, the family was wiped out, and the
imperial throne remained vacant until Henry VII descended into
Italy in 1311. 1. David Abulafia, Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor
(Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 186
