White Guelphs. Guelphs and Ghibellines: Total War. Guelphs and Ghibellines

The Italian city of Verona is known to us primarily thanks to the play by W. Shakespeare about Romeo and Juliet. But besides the balcony, where the first date of the lovers allegedly took place, there are many other attractions here. For example, the castle of Castelvecchio, built by the first governors of the city in the middle of the 14th century.

You go up to the castle along the bridge, and suddenly you notice something familiar. A red brick wall topped with M-shaped teeth (or, as guides say, a swallow's tail). Bah, aren't we in the Moscow Kremlin?

No, not in the Kremlin, - the guide assures us. According to him, the apparent similarities between the two old fortresses can be easily explained. The castle of Castelvecchio in the 14th century, as well as the Moscow Kremlin at the end of the 15th century, was erected by architects from Milan. Hence the red brick of the walls used in both cases, and the unusual shape of the teeth on them. But in fact, the model for the Moscow Kremlin is not the Verona castle of Castelvecchio, but the Sforza fortress built in the middle of the 15th century in Milan. There are similarities not only in the color of the walls and in the shape of the battlements, but even in the shape of the towers.

As for the shape of the teeth, this is a separate story, leading us not to the 14th century, but much earlier, at the time of the great enmity between the Guelphs and the doommen.

These two opposing parties grappled with each other on an important issue: who is the boss in the house (that is, in Europe). Guelphs, recognized the supremacy of spiritual power over secular. That is, the Pope was considered the ruler of the Christian world. Party Opposing the Guelphs ghibellines believed that the power of the emperor is superior to the power of the church, and therefore the Pope must carry out the orders of the emperor. Which, by the way, took place in the Byzantine Empire, where the emperor was considered the representative of God on earth. The Patriarch of Constantinople was only one of his subjects and did not have independent executive or legislative power.

The question of who should be considered the representative of God on earth was especially acute for Italy. The head of the Catholic Church, the Pope, played an important role here. He was not only the spiritual leader of all European Christians, but also the sovereign ruler of Rome, as well as a vast area in the center of Italy. The power of the emperor here was weaker than the power of the pope, since the emperor was in Germany, a remote and separated chain of the Alps.

The names of the warring Italian parties were imported from German. The word "Guelph" comes from the name of the dynasty of the Bavarian dukes of the Welfs, who competed in the struggle for the imperial throne with the Swabian dynasty of the Staufens. From one of the castles of the Staufen dukes, Gaubeling, the name of the pro-imperial party, the Ghibellines, originated. I doubt that at the end of the article my readers will remember who was for whom. After all, the names of both parties begin with the same letter. Let me give you a memo in the best traditions of pre-revolutionary Russian grammar schools. In the word "Guelphs" there is the second letter "B", the same with which the name of the residence of the popes, the Vatican, begins. This means that the Guelphs were on the side of the Pope. Simple, isn't it?

It must be said that the absence of a rigid "vertical of power" in Italy had enormous consequences for the entire European history. On the Apennine Peninsula, there were many cities founded during the Roman Empire. These cities gradually grew rich and became another influential force in public and political life. And their inhabitants acquired a new mentality, which became the basis of the modern European and American outlook on life. This view included rationalism, enterprise, faith in oneself and faith in the power of one's considerable money.

At the beginning of the 12th century, one of these cities, Florence, was the first to gain independence. Almost immediately, disagreements arose among the townspeople. With which of the two rival rulers in Italy is it preferable for the Florentine Republic to be friends: with the emperor or with the pope? The emperor's supporters were mainly urban aristocrats. For an alliance with the Pope, the townspeople spoke out, whose main trump card was not so much a noble origin as a large fortune. The disagreements resulted in a series of bloody wars, not only in Florence, but also in other Italian cities. The concept of tolerance did not yet exist. And the desire to reach a compromise developed in the European mind much later.

As a result of brutal internals, many Florentines had to flee their hometown. Among them was a certain Dante Alighieri. After living the rest of his life in exile, he created one of the greatest works of world literature, The Divine Comedy. And at the same time, having written it in his native Tuscan dialect, he laid the foundations.

Even the erected fortresses were marked by opponents in their own way in order to see a friend or an enemy waiting for you here from afar. The battlements of the emperor's supporters were shaped like the letter M, which vaguely resembled a symbol of imperial power, an eagle with outstretched wings. Pope's supporters made the battlements of their fortresses rectangular. So the architects from Milan, invited to distant Moscow, found themselves in some confusion: what form of prongs should be used to crown the walls of the fortress of the Russian sovereign? In the end, the builders decided that the imperial symbolism would be closer to him than the papal one, and the battlements of the walls of the Moscow Kremlin became similar to the letter M.

Guelphs and ghibellines, total war

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In 1480, the Milanese architects who were building the Moscow Kremlin were puzzled by an important political question: what form should the battlements of the walls and towers be made - straight or dovetail? The fact is that the Italian supporters of the Pope, called the Guelphs, had locks with rectangular teeth, and the opponents of the Pope, the Ghibellines, had dovetail locks. On reflection, the architects decided that the Grand Duke of Moscow was certainly not for the Pope. And now our Kremlin repeats the shape of the battlements on the walls of the Ghibelline castles in Italy. However, the struggle between these two parties determined not only the appearance of the Kremlin walls, but also the development paths of Western democracy. In 1194, a son, the future Frederick II, was born to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI Hohenstaufen. Soon after this, the court, roaming around Italy, stopped for some time in the south of the country (the Sicilian kingdom was united with the imperial territories thanks to the marriage of Henry and Constance Hauteville, heiress of the Norman kings). And there the sovereign turned to the Abbot Joachim of Flores, known for his eschatological concept of history, with the question of the future of his heir. The answer was devastating: “Oh, king! Your boy is a destroyer and a son of destruction. Alas, Lord! He will destroy the earth and will oppress the saints of the Most High. "

Pope Adrian IV crowns Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of the Hohenstaufen family in Rome in 1155. Neither one nor the other still imagine that soon the Italian world will split into "admirers" of the tiara and the crown, and a bloody struggle will break out between them.
It was during the reign of Frederick II (1220-1250) that the confrontation between the two parties began, which in varying degrees and forms influenced the history of Central and Northern Italy up to the 15th century. We are talking about Guelphs and Ghibellines. This struggle began in Florence and, formally speaking, has always remained a purely Florentine phenomenon. However, over the decades, driving out the defeated opponents from the city, the Florentines made almost the entire Apennine Peninsula and even neighboring countries, primarily France and Germany, complicit in their strife.
In 1216, at a rich wedding in the village of Campi, near Florence, a drunken brawl ensued. Daggers were used, and, according to the chronicler, the young patrician Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti killed a certain Oddo Arriga. Fearing revenge, the well-born young man (and Buondelmonte was a representative of one of the noble families of Tuscany) promised to marry a relative of Arriga from the merchant family of Amidea. It is not known: either the fear of misalliance, or intrigue, or maybe genuine love for another, but something made the groom break his promise and choose a girl from the noble family of Donati as his wife. On Easter morning, Buondelmonte rode a white horse to the bride's house to swear his marriage vow. But on the main bridge of Florence, Ponte Vecchio, he was attacked by the offended Arrigi and killed. "Then," says the chronicler, "the destruction of Florence began and new words appeared: the party of the Guelphs and the party of the Ghibellines." The Guelphs demanded revenge for the murder of Buondelmonte, and those who tried to conceal the case began to be called Ghibellines. There is no reason not to believe the chronicler in the story of the unfortunate fate of Buondelmonte. However, his version of the origin of two political parties in Italy, which had a huge impact on the history of not only this country, but also the entire new European civilization, raises fair doubts - a mouse cannot give birth to a mountain.
The groups of Guelphs and Ghibellines were indeed formed in the 13th century, but their source was not the everyday “showdown” of the Florentine clans, but the global processes of European history.

The so-called Emperor's Castle (at one time it belonged to Frederick II Hohenstaufen) in Prato served as the headquarters for local Ghibellines
At that time, the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation extended from the Baltic Sea in the north to Tuscany in the south and from Burgundy in the west to Bohemia in the east. In such a large area, it was extremely difficult for the emperors to maintain order, especially in Northern Italy, separated by mountains. It is because of the Alps that the names of the parties we are talking about came to Italy. The German "Welf" was pronounced by the Italians as "Guelfi"; in turn, Ghibellini is a distorted German Waiblingen. In Germany, this was the name of two rival dynasties - the Welfs, to whom Saxony and Bavaria belonged, and the Hohenstaufens, who came from Swabia (they were called "Weiblings", after the name of one of the family castles). But in Italy the meaning of these terms has been expanded. Northern Italian cities found themselves between a rock and a hard place - their independence was threatened by both German emperors and popes. In turn, Rome was in a state of continuous conflict with the Hohenstaufens, seeking to capture all of Italy.
By the 13th century, under Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), there was a final split between the church and the secular government. Its roots go back to the end of the 11th century, when, on the initiative of Gregory VII (1073-1085), the struggle for investiture - the right to appoint bishops - began. Previously, it was possessed by the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, but now the Holy See wanted to make investiture its privilege, hoping that it would be an important step towards the spread of papal influence in Europe. True, after a series of wars and mutual curses, none of the participants in the conflict managed to achieve complete victory - it was decided that the prelates elected by the chapters would receive spiritual investiture from the Pope, and the secular one from the emperor. The follower of Gregory VII, Innocent III, achieved such power that he could freely interfere in the internal affairs of European states, and many monarchs considered themselves vassals of the Holy See. The Catholic Church became stronger, gained independence and received large financial resources at its disposal. It turned into a closed hierarchy that zealously defended its privileges and its inviolability over the next centuries. Church reformers believed that it was time to rethink the unity of secular and spiritual authorities (regnum and sacerdotium) characteristic of the early Middle Ages in favor of the supreme authority of the Church. A conflict between the clergy and the world was inevitable.
The cities had to choose whom to take as their allies. Those who supported the Pope were called Guelphs (after all, the Welf dynasty was at enmity with the Hohenstaufens), respectively, those who were against the papal throne - Ghibellines, allies of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Exaggerating, we can say that in the cities for the Guelphs there were popolo (people), and for the Ghibellines - the aristocracy. The mutual balance of these forces determined urban politics.

Otto IV, Emperor of the Welf family
The crown against the tiara The words "Guelph" and "Ghibelline", although they were "invented" at the earliest stage of the great conflict, were not particularly popular in the Middle Ages. The conflicting parties in Italian cities preferred to call themselves simply the "party of the emperor" and the "party of the Pope." It was practical: the Latinized German terminology could not keep up with the political conjuncture. And for some time before the beginning of the XIII century, the situation, in general, was the opposite of what went down in history: the Welfs were considered enemies of Rome, and the Hohenstaufens were its allies. The situation was as follows. In 1197, Otto IV (1182-1218) Welf was elected emperor of Germany. As it usually happened in that era, not everyone supported this candidacy. Otto's opponents chose another monarch from the House of Hohenstaufen - Philip of Swab (1178-1218). Strife began, ruining everyone, but beneficial to the third force, Pope Innocent III (1161-1216). At first, Innokenty supported Otto. It was a strategically correct move. The fact is that the pontiff was the guardian of the minor Friedrich Hohenstaufen (1194-1250), the future brilliant Frederick II, who then occupied the throne of the king of Sicily. In this situation, the Pope tried not to admit the Hohenstaufens to the German throne, because in this case the south of Italy could become part of the Empire. However, if luck smiled at the Hohenstaufens, Innocent, as Frederick's regent, could influence their politics. However, in 1210, Otto himself withdrew from the alliance with the Pope, deciding to take over the whole of Italy. In response, a year later, the governor of Saint Peter excommunicated the traitor from the church. He also did everything for the council of German princes in Nuremberg to elect now the 17-year-old Frederick, who was under his guardianship, as the German king. It was from this moment that the pontiff became an enemy of the Welfs and an ally of the Hohenstaufens. But Frederick II also did not live up to the hopes of his patron! The pope died in 1216, never receiving the promised lands and not waiting for the start of the crusade, which he had hoped for. On the contrary, the new ruler of Germany begins to act, openly ignoring the interests of Rome. Now the Guelphs become "real" Guelphs, and the Ghibellines become Ghibellines. However, the process of final delimitation dragged on for another 11 years (until 1227), that is, until the new Pope Gregory IX (1145-1241) excommunicated Frederick from the church for his unauthorized return from the Holy Land (where he is still in eventually went). Pavel Kotov
So, the figures on the geopolitics board are placed - the emperor, the Pope, the cities. It seems to us that their threefold enmity was the result of not only human greed.
The participation of cities - that's what was fundamentally new in the confrontation between the popes and the German emperors. The citizen of Italy felt the vacuum of power and did not fail to take advantage of it: simultaneously with the religious reform, a movement for self-government began, which was to completely change the balance of forces not only in Italy, but throughout Europe in two centuries. It began precisely on the Apennine Peninsula, since here the urban civilization had strong ancient roots and rich traditions of trade relying on its own financial resources. The old Roman centers, which suffered at the hands of the barbarians, were successfully revived, in Italy there were much more townspeople than in other countries of the West.
Urban civilization and its characteristic features in a few words no one can describe to us better than a thoughtful contemporary, the German historian of the mid-12th century Otto Freisingensky: “The Latins (inhabitants of Italy),” he writes, “to this day imitate the wisdom of the ancient Romans in the arrangement of cities government management. They love freedom so much that they prefer to obey the consuls rather than the lords in order to avoid abuses of power. And so that they do not abuse their power, they are replaced almost every year. The city forces everyone living in the territory of the diocese to submit to itself, and it is difficult to find a signor or a noble person who would not submit to the authority of the city. The city is not ashamed to knight and admit young men of the lowest origin, even artisans, to rule. Therefore, Italian cities surpass all others in wealth and power. This is facilitated not only by the rationality of their institutions, but also by the long absence of sovereigns who usually remain on the other side of the Alps. "
The economic strength of the Italian cities turned out to be almost decisive in the struggle between the Empire and the Papacy. The city did not at all oppose itself to the traditional feudal world. On the contrary, he did not think of himself outside of him. Even before the commune, this new way of political self-government, finally crystallized, the urban elite realized that the enjoyment of freedoms should be recognized by the emperor or the pope, better by both. They should have protected these freedoms. By the middle of the 12th century, all the values of the urban civilization of Italy were concentrated in the concept of freedom. The sovereign, who encroached on her, turned from a defender into an enslaver and a tyrant. As a result, the townspeople went over to the side of his enemy and continued the incessant war.

Dante Alighieri: Poetry as Politics The first half of Dante's life was spent in Florence during the turbulent events of the last decades of the 13th century, when the scales tipped here in favor of the Guelphs. The great poet actively participated in the social life of his native city, first as an adviser, and since 1300 - as a prior. By this time, the secular power of the Pope in Tuscany began to be felt quite strongly, and a split occurred within the Guelph party. Around Corso Donati, the fundamentalists ("Blacks") united - solid supporters of the Pope and the French kings, and around Vieri dei Cerca - "Whites", moderate, inclined to compromise with the Ghibellines. The conflict reached its climax under Boniface VIII (1295-1303). According to his bull "Unam sanctam" of 1302, all believers must obey the pontiff in all spiritual and temporal matters. This Pope was afraid of the political resistance of the obstinate White Guelphs (in particular, they were preparing to shelter his worst enemies, the Roman family of Colonna), and besides, he planned to include all of Tuscany in the Papal States. To build bridges "in this direction" Boniface VIII sent the banker Vieri, who controlled more than half of Florentine finances, but Dante and his comrades saw through the pontiff's plan and did not accept an intermediary. Moreover, the White Guelphs decided to “play ahead” and sent a delegation to Rome themselves (the author of “The Divine Comedy” also entered it) in order to protect themselves - after all, it was not conceivable to go to an open confrontation with Rome. In the meantime ... the priors who remained in Florence let Karl of Valois, brother of the French king Philip the Fair, into the city. The presence of the prince of blood in the city, disposed towards the French, in general, benevolently, deprived the government of maneuver, and the Black Guelphs took up arms and drove the Whites. Proscriptions followed, and Alighieri never returned to his homeland. He was sentenced to two death sentences in absentia, and only fifteen years later he was amnestied in absentia. In exile, the White Guelphs often teamed up with the Ghibellines. This policy was a successful form of moderate Guelphism that suited popes like Gregory X (1271-1276) or Nicholas III (1277-1280). But as for Boniface VIII, this pontiff evoked only hatred in Dante. And other Guelphs were ashamed of the personality of the one whose interests they were supposed to protect. At first Dante was the mouthpiece of the exiles. However, he soon changed his point of view: the poet became convinced that only the firm hand of the German monarch could save Italy from civil strife. Now he pinned his hopes on Henry VII of the Luxembourg dynasty (1275-1313). In 1310, the king went to Italy to take control of the cities and put pressure on opponents. He succeeded in something: he received the imperial crown. But after that, Heinrich behaved in the same way as his predecessors, getting bogged down in an endless chess game. The cities also did not know how to behave, their leaders rushed about. In 1313, the emperor died suddenly in Tuscany. From that moment on, Dante decided that it was better to be “your own slave” (in Italian, more precisely: “to be your own party”). He was both cunning and quite sincere. The "Divine Comedy" ends with the apotheosis of Empire and Love in the Paradise Rose: the universe was unthinkable for him without a monarchy, uniting the world of people with love. But the last legitimate, from Dante's point of view, Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) is executed in hell among heretics, along with his courtiers: the treasurer Peter Vineysky, condemned to torture for suicide, and the astrologer Michael Scott - for sorcery. This is all the more surprising since by the breadth of his views this emperor evoked deep sympathy with the Florentine poet. But that was Dante: when he felt that he had to punish, he stepped over his personal feelings. Likewise, he was truly outraged by the trick of Cardinal Giacomo Colonna, who, according to popular rumor, slapped the captured Pope Boniface VIII. He personally hated Boniface, but as a true Catholic he respected the Pope and could not imagine that one could touch him, commit physical violence against the pontiff. In the same way, Dante respected Emperor Frederick, but he could not help but send to hell the one to whom rumor attributed heretical statements (disbelief in the immortality of the soul and the doctrine of the eternity of the world). Dante's paradox is the paradox of the Middle Ages.
When, in the 1150s, the young German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa appeared on the peninsula with the aim of returning the northern Italian provinces to obedience, a kind of huge chessboard appeared in his eyes, where the squares represented cities with more or less large provinces subordinate to them - contado. Each pursued his own interests, which ran into opposition from the nearest neighbor. Therefore, it was difficult for Mantua to become an ally of Verona, and Bergamo, say, Brescia, etc. Each city looked for an ally in a more distant neighbor with whom it had no territorial disputes. The city tried with all its might to subordinate the districts to its own orders, as a result of this process, called comitatinanza, small states arose. The strongest of them tried to absorb the weakest.
There was no end in sight to the strife in Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia, Romagna, Tuscany. The cruelty that the Italians showed to each other is striking. In 1158, the emperor laid siege to the rebellious Milan, and “no one,” writes the chronicler, “participated in this siege with greater fury than the Cremonians and the Pavians. The besieged, too, did not show more hostility to anyone than to them. There has long been rivalry and strife between Milan and these cities. In Milan, many thousands of their people were killed or suffered in grievous captivity, their lands were plundered and burned. Since they themselves could not properly take revenge on Milan, who surpassed them both in their own strengths and in the number of allies, they decided that the right moment had come to pay off the insults inflicted on them. " The combined German-Italian troops then managed to break proud Milan, its fortifications as the most important symbol of freedom and independence were torn down, and an equally symbolic furrow was drawn along the central square. However, the glorious German knights were not always lucky - the city militias, especially those united under the auspices of the Lombard League, inflicted equally crushing defeats on them, the memory of which remained for centuries.
Cruelty was an indispensable part of the struggle of the Italian medieval parties. The government was cruel, but the townspeople were just as cruel towards it: the "guilty" podesta, consuls, even prelates were beaten, their tongues were torn out, they were blinded, they were driven in shame through the streets. Such attacks did not necessarily lead to regime change, but gave the illusion of temporary release. The authorities responded with torture and stimulated denunciations. The suspect of espionage, conspiracy and connections with the enemy was threatened with expulsion or the death penalty. Normal legal proceedings were not applied in such matters. When the criminals were hiding, the authorities did not shun the services of hired killers. The most common punishment was deprivation of property, and for wealthy families, the demolition of a palazzo. The methodical destruction of towers and palaces was intended not only to erase the memory of individuals, but also of their ancestors. The ominous concept of proscriptions returned (this is how even in the time of Sulla in Rome the proclamation of a certain citizen was called outlaw - his murder was allowed and encouraged, and the property went to the treasury and partly to the murderers themselves), and often they now extended to the children and grandchildren of the convict (along the male line ). So the ruling party uprooted whole family trees from public life.

This proud word "Lombardy" The inhabitants of the Northern Italian cities understood perfectly well: they cannot fight the German emperors alone. Therefore, back in 1167, sixteen communes led by Milan created the so-called Lombard League. For representation in the new union, each participant delegated his deputy, the so-called "rector". The rectors were in charge of political strategy, issues of declaring war and concluding peace, as well as general quartermaster (army supply). This well-oiled federation showed its strength most vividly on May 27, 1176 in the battle of Legnano (30 kilometers from Milan) against the knights of Frederick I. The emperor acted strictly according to the rules then accepted, relying on the frontal attack of his heavy cavalry. And the Lombards showed their imagination. They pushed forward the heavy Milanese cavalry, which, imitating a retreat, led the Germans to the spears and hooks of the general Lombard foot militia. Frederick's troops mixed and immediately received a blow to the right flank from cavalrymen from Brescia, who were in reserve. Frederick fled, throwing down his shield and banner. In 1183, he was forced to sign the Peace of Constance, according to which the cities were returned to everything that was taken away, it was, privileges and an even wider autonomy of government was granted. However, when in 1237 Barbarossa's grandson, Frederick II, came to Lombardy to complete the business unsuccessfully started by his grandfather, the military fortune turned away from the Italians. On November 27, 1237, the German cavalry unexpectedly attacked the Milanese near the town of Kortenuovo on the Olo River. The blow was crushing, the townspeople were defeated and overturned. True, the Lombard infantry did not flinch - having occupied a perimeter defense, it held out until late in the evening against the armored knights, closed from them with a wall of shields and withstood cruel melee. However, the Guelphs suffered heavy losses from the arrows of the Arabs in Frederick's army. Late in the evening, the last of the defenders surrendered. In this battle, the defeated lost several thousand people killed and captured. But despite the defeat, the League continued to exist and struggle. Moreover, thanks to her efforts, Frederick never managed to completely subjugate Lombardy. She broke up after the death of this energetic sovereign. Pavel Kotov
In addition, the daily stream of violence also emanated from special organized groups, such as extended tribal “militias” (“consortium”), parish “squads” of a certain church, or “contrads” (quarterly “teams”). There were various forms of disobedience: an open refusal to follow the laws of the commune (actually a synonym for "city"), a military attack on the entire hometown by those expelled from it for political reasons, "terrorist attacks" against magistrates and clergy, theft of their property, the creation of secret societies, subversive agitation.
I must say that in this struggle, political predilections changed with the speed of a kaleidoscope. Who are you, Guelph or Ghibelline, is often decided by momentary circumstances. Throughout the thirteenth century, there is hardly one large city where the power has not changed violently several times. What to say about Florence, which changed the laws with extraordinary ease. Everything was decided by practice. The one who seized power formed the government, created laws and monitored their implementation, controlled the courts, etc. Opponents - in prison, in exile, outside the law, but the exiles and their secret allies did not forget the insult and spent their fortunes on a secret or overt struggle. For them, the government of the adversaries had no legal force, at least not greater than their own.
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were not at all organized parties, subordinate to the leadership of their formal leaders. They were a network of independent factions that collaborated with each other up to a certain point under a suitable banner. The Guelphs often turned their weapons against the Pope, and the Ghibellines acted without considering the interests of applicants for the imperial crown. The Gibellines did not deny the Church, and the Guelphs the Empire, but they tried to minimize their real claims to power. The governments of Guelph were often excommunicated. Prelates often came from aristocratic families with Ghibelline roots - even some popes could be accused of Ghibelline sympathies!

Villafranca Castle in Moneglia, near Genoa, passed from Guelphs to Ghibellines and back many times
Price of freedom. In the confrontation between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, one can and should look for the origins of modern political traditions of Western Europe - the origins of bourgeois, that is, in fact, literally translated, urban democracy. Despite the fact that, as we have seen, its participants were not at all "democratic" either in their structure or in the methods and goals of the struggle. Party members behaved not only authoritarian, but simply brutal. They uncompromisingly aspired to the power that escaped the hands of the "universal", great-power rulers, whose position seemed to be firmly consolidated by the age-old tradition of feudal society. But if the economic, legal and cultural situation in Europe did not really change and would not allow new forces to emerge and gain strength, perhaps democracy, by no means alien to the medieval consciousness as a whole, would have remained only a dream or a memory of the long-gone past of Greece and Rome. ... Indeed, in addition to bloody weddings, executions and betrayals, the first parliaments, the first secular schools, and finally the first universities were formed. A new culture of speech also emerged - a modernized oratory, with the help of which politicians now had to convince fellow citizens that they were right. The same Dante is unthinkable without the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, without the urban culture that nurtured him. He is also unthinkable without his teacher - Brunetto Latini, who, according to the chronicler, was the first to teach the Florentines to live according to the laws of Politics. And without Dante, his contemporaries and descendants, in turn, the Renaissance is impossible - an era that showed the European peoples the opportunity to develop for everyone according to their own choice. For example, in Renaissance Italy, the terms "Guelphs" and "Ghibellines" lost their former meaning, political passions boiled around new people and new problems. But as before, the inhabitants of the country remembered that it was then, in opposition to the formidable emperors of the Hohenstaufens, that what was most dear to them: Freedom. They remembered, not even always realizing it, - reflexively.
The Guelph and Ghibelline parties were mobile, while maintaining their employees and corporate rules. In exile, they acted as mercenary gangs and political groups, exerting pressure alternately through war and sometimes through diplomacy. Returning home, they became not only a power, but an influential social force (the concept of a party in power did not exist). For example, when in 1267 the Guelphs once again established control over Florence, their captain and consul entered the government. At the same time, their party remained a private organization, which, however, was officially "awarded" the confiscated property of the exiled Ghibellines. With these funds, she began, in fact, the financial enslavement of the city. In March 1288, the commune and popolo owed her 13,000 florins. This allowed the Guelphs to put pressure on their fellow countrymen so that they sanctioned the outbreak of war against the Tuscan Ghibellines (which led to the victory at Campaldino in 1289). In general, the parties played the role of the main censors and guardians of political "faithfulness", ensuring, with varying degrees of success, the loyalty of the townspeople to the Pope or the Emperor, respectively. That's the whole ideology.

The leader of the Pisan ghibellines, Ugolino della Gherardesca, together with his sons, was imprisoned in the castle of Gualandi, where he died of starvation.
Reading medieval prophecies, the historiosophical reasoning of the followers of Joachim of Flores, or the writings of Dante, promising trouble for Italian cities, one gets the impression that there were no right or wrong in that struggle. From the Scottish astrologer Michael Scott, who spoke to Frederick II in 1232 in Bologna, both the rebellious Guelph communes and the cities loyal to the Empire got it. Dante, Count Ugolino della Gerardesca of Pisa, condemned him to the terrible torments of hell for betraying his party, but despite this, under his pen he became almost the most humane image of the entire poem, at least of its first part. The 13th century chronicler Saba Malaspina called both the Guelphs and the Ghibellines as demons, and Jeri of Arezzo called his fellow citizens pagans because they worshiped these party names like idols.
Is it worth looking for a reasonable beginning behind this "idolatry", any real political or cultural convictions? Is it possible to understand at all the nature of the conflict, the roots of which go far into the past of the Italian lands, and the consequences - in the Italy of the New Time, with its political fragmentation, "neogwelphs" and "neohibellines"? Perhaps, in some ways, the struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines is akin to the fights of football tifosi, sometimes quite dangerous and bloody? How can a self-respecting young Italian not root for his native club? How can he be completely "out of the game"? Struggle, conflict, "partisanship", if you like, in the very nature of man, and the Middle Ages in this is very similar to us. Trying to look in the history of the Guelphs and Ghibellines exclusively for the expression of the struggle of classes, estates or "strata" is perhaps not worth it. But at the same time, we must not forget that the modern democratic traditions of the West largely originate from the struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
Maneuvering between the two implacable enemies - the Pope and the Emperor - did not make it possible for either party to achieve final military and political superiority. In another case, if one of the opponents turned out to be the owner of unlimited power, European democracy would remain only in history textbooks. And so - it turned out a kind of unique power parity, which in many respects ensured a sharp leap forward in Western civilization - on a competitive basis.

"In Europe, secular power is separated from the church" - this is one of the cliches of the ideological struggle. When they say this phrase, they refer it to the department of "human rights" - in the minds of an envious Russian intellectual, this fact is located next to the jury, with unemployment benefits and the right to demonstrate. The church is separated from the state - for some reason it seems that this progressive decision was made in the name of the rights and dignity of the citizen. We ourselves do not know what else to consider such a tasty dish in a neighbor's plate - and we do not understand that there may be something not edible there. In this case, we envy what has plunged Europe into an incessant war.

Massive and regular murder in European history is precisely due to the fact that secular power and the power of the church were divided and competed. And millions were regularly loaded into the furnace of this ardent rivalry.

As a matter of fact, all the former history of Europe so far (all as it is) is an attempt to unite the lands - and the immediate disintegration of these lands, then a new attempt to unite - and the next disintegration, and this continues for one and a half millennia.

The unification of the disintegrated empire of Charlemagne was carried out on the basis of two incompatible principles: the power of the Pope - or the power of the Kaiser, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (that is, Europe from the Baltic to the Mediterranean).

Henry the Birdman, Otto the Great of Saxony, Frederick Barbarossa made efforts comparable to those of Sisyphus - to drag the stone of the empire to the shining Roman heights - sometimes they even succeeded. It really was a Sisyphean labor, since the lands divided between the Carolingians (Lothar Clovis and Charles received territories roughly corresponding to Germany, France, Italy) bred heirs, heirs bred ambitions and loyal counts, the electors received the right to elect a new king - and so on endlessly. As soon as the empire was established, the offended sons of Louis the Pious began a war, or Lothar was dissatisfied with his share, and so on. The Salic, Saxon, Franconian and Habsburg dynasties tried to overcome this pattern, but as soon as they managed to reign at the top and build a semblance of order, the stone of the empire was pulled out of their hands, rolled down, and crumbled into dust.

Anarchy in Europe in the Middle Ages is the daily nightmare of a peasant, city dweller and artisan: life and death are completely unpredictable - unification can occur according to the most unexpected scenario.

Today's swindler, inventing shares in a non-existent mine, building financial pyramids without collateral, is, in essence, the heir of those European feudal lords who invented their rights to rule over this or that space. And the space was inhabited by living people who were used as shields or swords.

A single power, a general order was required - the throne of Peter, located in Rome, or the German emperor could give it (he was then called the Roman emperor, although the throne could be in Aachen or Regensbug). The paradox of the situation was that the king could be crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire only in Rome with the Pope, and the Pope needed only faithful emperors. Emperors resorted to bishops, who sometimes elected anti-pope, and the pope used dynastic feuds to encourage loyal kings. In this way, situations with a double papacy arose twice, and each pope had his own emperor for Europe. This four-power was not good at all - it turned into a hundred-power immediately - the favorites-barons and counts of palatine took for themselves, in Yeltsin's words, "as much as they could carry."

In the end, there was a situation of constant confrontation between the papists and the imperials, described by the enmity of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, that is, pronouncing correctly, the Welfs and the Weiblungs (these are Germanic words: Weiblung is the Hohenstaufen castle, Welfs are the family of kings).

The enmity between the Guelphs (papists) and the Ghibellines (imperials) is the main issue of all European history, this is its backbone - everything else happened around it and in connection with it. Papal power (which did not last long due to the length of human life and was not inherited) preferred to rely on many equal (equidistant, they would say now) dukes and kings, on the federal principle of European power. It was beneficial for the papacy to support the alliances of many, and not the power of one strong, to support short-lived republics, betraying them, of course, when a treaty with one or another king demanded it. The emperor, who passed on power by inheritance, required stability and the absence of competitors.

The combination of imperial and papal power (episodes happened: Frederick Barbarossa and Andrian IV, for example) never was - and could not be - durable.

The Guelphs and Ghibellines thus personified two radical principles of the structure of Europe - centrifugal and centripetal, republican and imperial.

European history is reminiscent of the famous riddle of a wolf, a goat and a cabbage - which must be transported intact to the other side of the river, and only two can fit in the boat.

If a wolf is an empire, and a goat is a church, then the people always imagined cabbage - which either the goat will eat, or the wolf will tear, or it will simply rot.

In fact, Europe is one big Germany, all the great dynasties are German (World War I - the war of cousins); but Europe's title claim is, of course, Rome. Roman history, as in the DNA code, contains all the subsequent development of the European idea and its possible interpretations; this idea, in a very short word, is an eternal competition between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. This competition, overturned for centuries, has become an eternal European intrigue.

You can, of course, define this competition as the independence of the church from the state - but this will be a very local definition. Over the centuries, the church lost its positions, society became secularized, the imperial German lands became mostly Protestant, and later socialism entered the political game - but the meaning of the contradiction remained. The Guelphs and Ghibellines personified the eternal ontological rivalry between the two principles of maintaining European power.

Bismarck (and after him Hitler) acted as classical German emperors, textbook Ghibellines, uniting the lands under the rule of the Kaiser crown; Hitler never concealed the fact that he hated the Catholic Church, republics and was building the Reich, like Otto the Great. And da Gaulle's idea: The United European States is a typical Guelph design.

This confrontation never ended. The endless Franco-Prussian war (1870 - 1945) may well be viewed as a struggle between two, once clearly defined, principles of the European system - federal-republican or imperial.

This is the history of Europe - and Europe has no other history, excuse me. There are great humanists and philosophers, there are poets and artists, there is Dante Alighieri, who was such a Guelph that he did not go with the Guelphs or the Ghibellines, or to Poklonnaya or Bolotnaya. Dante spoke about a world, supranational monarchy, not about the German Empire, not even about the Roman Empire, but about the world one, combined with the power of Theosophy. And this is not at all like a globalization project, a pan-Ghibelline project.

Dante, as you know, was sentenced to death, was not accepted by either one or the other.

This is Europe. This is the story that has been imposed on many of us as an ideal. This is an endless bloody war. Endless murder and deception.

And what the so-called democrats Nemtsov and Parkhomenko promised you was that they lied out of ignorance. When the madman Gorbachev set out to enter the "common European home" in the firm conviction that Europe is such a place where there is a lot of sausage, a jury and the church is separated from the state, he himself did not know exactly where he was entering. Fog reigned in my head, and only flashes of lightning swept “civilization! rights!". When the benevolent lady Prokhorov recommends rewriting history, so that at last it becomes clear that Russia is part of Europe, and the rich have the right to spread rot on the people, she does not even know which Europe she stands for. When they prove that Stalin dragged Europe into the war (that is, one Georgian provoked a feud that has been dragging on for two thousand years), they are lying. When someone believes that the European Union will not disintegrate, he is mistaken. And if someone believes that Russia is a European power, on the basis that Russian bankers have introduced mortgages, then this person is a short-sighted donkey.

The main engine of world history is the struggle of opposites. Human civilization remembers dozens of great confrontations: the Achaeans against the Trojans, the Guelphs against the Ghibellines, the Scarlet Rose against the White Rose, the Jacobins against the Girondins, the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, etc. We remember the most global ones.

Greeks against Persians

The time of the most active confrontation between the Greek states and the Achaemenid empire falls on the period of the Greco-Persian wars, which lasted a total of 500 to 449 BC. NS. The powerful Persian Empire at first did not have any particular problems with the conquest of scattered Greek cities and, only approaching the possessions of Sparta and Athens, faced a serious rebuff.

First, the brilliant victory of Athens at Marathon (490 BC), and then the heroic defense of Thermopylae by the Spartans (480 BC) raised doubts about the effectiveness of the huge Persian army, which met with a more tactically literate Greek army.

The convincing victories at Salamis, Plataea and Mikala, won by the Greeks, turned the tide of the war and forced the Persians to liberate the previously conquered Greek territories. The Peace of Callian, concluded in 449 BC. e., ended the war, but did not stop the enmity between the Greeks and Persians. 60 years later, as part of the troops of Alexander the Great, the Greeks took part in the defeat of the Persian Empire.

Rome against Carthage

The goal of the struggle between Rome and Carthage was domination in the Western Mediterranean, where by the 3rd century BC. NS. the latter reigned supreme. Carthage colonized not only the south of the Iberian Peninsula, but also Corsica, Sardinia and a significant part of Sicily, which displeased Rome.

It was Sicily that became the bone of contention between Rome and Carthage, which resulted in the First Punic War (264–241 BC). The 23-year confrontation, exhausting both states, led to a formal victory for Rome, but the question of dominance in the region remained unresolved.

The second (218–201 BC) and the Third (149–146 BC) Punic Wars were a kind of result of the military and economic rise of Rome. The invincible Carthaginian fleet was finally destroyed, and the capital of the state was wiped off the face of the Earth.

Guelphs vs. Ghibellines

The confrontation between the two German dynasties, the Welf and the Hohenstaufen, and later the political parties - the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, according to historians, determined the development of European democracy. However, starting in the 12th century in Florence, this struggle at first did not go beyond the borders of Central and Northern Italy, but then Germany and France were very quickly drawn into it.

By the 12th century, the intervention of the Catholic Church in the affairs of European states had become so active that a serious conflict arose between the clergy and the world. Supporters of the Pope of Rome, Guelph, advocated limiting the power of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, while the Ghibellines did not want to put up with the growing influence of the papal throne.

The struggle between the papal and imperial parties existed for a long time, but this time Italian cities were involved in this confrontation, and the power in them, depending on economic and political circumstances, could change with a kaleidoscopic speed: today the Guelphs rule, and tomorrow they are replaced by the Ghibellines.

Often the political leanings of the Guelphs and Ghibellines were not so straightforward. Maneuvering between the emperor and the Pope, they could not achieve clear superiority over each other, while maintaining power parity. Such competition, according to historians, has become one of the components of the development of European civilization.

France vs England

Until the 20th century, England and France remained bitter rivals. The history of their relationship is full of dramatic episodes, the main of which is the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Starting with a dynastic conflict, this war subsequently acquired a national character.

France suffered the most from it, which lost 2/3 of its population both on the battlefield and as a result of disease and hunger. Nevertheless, the French troops managed to push the British out of the territory of their country, depriving them of all possessions on the continent.

The struggle for colonial rule in the 17th-18th centuries became a new page in the history of Anglo-French rivalry. The main arenas of the colonial wars between England and France were North America and India, where the British were able to fully demonstrate their military and diplomatic superiority.

USSR vs USA

The confrontation between the two superpowers emerged immediately after the end of World War II. Each of the countries tried to prove its priority, and in all spheres at once - ideological, economic, military, space, sports, and cultural. All the years before the collapse of the USSR passed under the sign of the Cold War.

Both states directed most of their forces to defense. The main goal of the arms race was to intimidate the enemy. So, according to the "Dropshot" plan, on January 1, 1957, the operation of the NATO army was to begin, during which it was planned to drop 300 atomic bombs on 100 Soviet cities.

The Soviet Union did not stand aside and on October 30, 1961 demonstratively tested a hydrogen bomb with a capacity of 50 megatons. Further more. The United States launched a cruise missile deployment program in Turkey, the USSR in Cuba. Only by the mid-1960s, both states questioned the possibility of winning a nuclear war and began to think about reducing the number of warheads.

The military rivalry between the two countries was reflected in space exploration. While the USSR was launching the first artificial satellite and preparing the first manned flight, the lagging behind in the US space race hatched a plan to launch a nuclear rocket to the lunar surface. The gamble was never realized, and the Americans embarked on a program for the peaceful exploration of the moon. No less fierce confrontation between the USSR and the United States took place in sports arenas. It was expressed not only in the race for victories, but also in the boycott of the competition. The United States ignored the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and four years later, Soviet athletes did not go to Los Angeles.

3 302

In 1480, the Milanese architects who were building the Moscow Kremlin were puzzled by an important political question: what shape should the battlements of the walls and towers be made - straight or dovetail? The fact is that the Italian supporters of the Pope, called the Guelphs, had locks with rectangular teeth, while the opponents of the Pope, the Ghibellines, had dovetail locks. On reflection, the architects decided that the Grand Duke of Moscow was certainly not for the Pope. And now our Kremlin repeats the shape of the battlements on the walls of the Ghibelline castles in Italy.

However, the struggle between these two parties determined not only the appearance of the Kremlin walls, but also the development paths of Western democracy.
In 1194, a son, the future Frederick II, was born to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI Hohenstaufen. Soon after this, the court, roaming around Italy, stopped for some time in the south of the country (the Sicilian kingdom was united with the imperial territories thanks to the marriage of Henry and Constance Hauteville, heiress of the Norman kings). And there the sovereign turned to the Abbot Joachim of Flores, known for his eschatological concept of history, with the question of the future of his heir. The answer was devastating: “Oh, king! Your boy is a destroyer and a son of destruction. Alas, Lord! He will destroy the earth and will oppress the saints of the Most High. "
Pope Adrian IV crowns Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of the Hohenstaufen family in Rome in 1155. Neither one nor the other still imagine that soon the Italian world will split into "admirers" of the tiara and the crown, and a bloody struggle will break out between them.
It was during the reign of Frederick II (1220-1250) that the confrontation between the two parties began, which in different degrees and in different forms influenced the history of Central and Northern Italy up to the 15th century. We are talking about Guelphs and Ghibellines. This struggle began in Florence and, formally speaking, has always remained a purely Florentine phenomenon. However, over the decades, driving out the defeated opponents from the city, the Florentines made almost the entire Apennine Peninsula and even neighboring countries, primarily France and Germany, complicit in their strife.
In 1216, at a rich wedding in the village of Campi, near Florence, a drunken brawl ensued. Daggers were used, and, according to the chronicler, the young patrician Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti killed a certain Oddo Arriga. Fearing revenge, the well-born young man (and Buondelmonte was a representative of one of the noble families of Tuscany) promised to marry a relative of Arriga from the merchant family of Amidea. It is not known: either the fear of misalliance, or intrigue, or maybe genuine love for another, but something made the groom break his promise and choose a girl from the noble family of Donati as his wife. On Easter morning, Buondelmonte rode a white horse to the bride's house to swear his marriage vow. But on the main bridge of Florence, Ponte Vecchio, he was attacked by the offended Arrigi and killed. "Then," says the chronicler, "the destruction of Florence began and new words appeared: the party of the Guelphs and the party of the Ghibellines." The Guelphs demanded revenge for the murder of Buondelmonte, and those who tried to conceal the case began to be called Ghibellines. There is no reason not to believe the chronicler in the story of the unfortunate fate of Buondelmonte. However, his version of the origin of the two political parties in Italy, which had a huge impact on the history of not only this country, but also the entire new European civilization, raises fair doubts - a mouse cannot give birth to a mountain.
The groups of Guelphs and Ghibellines were indeed formed in the 13th century, but their source was not the everyday “showdown” of the Florentine clans, but the global processes of European history.
At that time, the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation extended from the Baltic Sea in the north to Tuscany in the south and from Burgundy in the west to Bohemia in the east. In such a large area, it was extremely difficult for the emperors to maintain order, especially in Northern Italy, separated by mountains. It is because of the Alps that the names of the parties we are talking about came to Italy. The German "Welf" was pronounced by the Italians as "Guelfi"; in turn, "Ghibellini" is a distorted German Waiblingen. In Germany, this was the name of two rival dynasties - the Welfs, to whom Saxony and Bavaria belonged, and the Hohenstaufens, immigrants from Swabia (they were called "Weiblings", after the name of one of the family castles). But in Italy the meaning of these terms has been expanded. Northern Italian cities found themselves between a rock and a hard place - their independence was threatened by both German emperors and popes. In turn, Rome was in a state of continuous conflict with the Hohenstaufens, seeking to capture all of Italy.
By the 13th century, under Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), there was a final split between the church and the secular government. Its roots go back to the end of the 11th century, when, on the initiative of Gregory VII (1073-1085), the struggle for investiture - the right to appoint bishops - began. Previously, it was possessed by the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, but now the Holy See wanted to make investiture its privilege, hoping that it would be an important step towards the spread of papal influence in Europe. True, after a series of wars and mutual curses, none of the participants in the conflict managed to achieve complete victory - it was decided that the prelates elected by the chapters would receive spiritual investiture from the Pope, and the secular one from the emperor. The follower of Gregory VII, Innocent III, achieved such power that he could freely interfere in the internal affairs of European states, and many monarchs considered themselves vassals of the Holy See. The Catholic Church became stronger, gained independence and received large financial resources at its disposal. It turned into a closed hierarchy that zealously defended its privileges and its inviolability over the next centuries. Church reformers believed that it was time to rethink the unity of secular and spiritual authorities (regnum and sacerdotium) characteristic of the early Middle Ages in favor of the supreme authority of the Church. A conflict between the clergy and the world was inevitable.

The cities had to choose whom to take as their allies. Those who supported the Pope were called Guelphs (after all, the Welf dynasty was at enmity with the Hohenstaufens), respectively, those who were against the papal throne - Ghibellines, allies of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Exaggerating, we can say that in the cities for the Guelphs was popolo (people), and for the Ghibellines - the aristocracy. The mutual balance of these forces determined urban politics.
So, the figures on the geopolitics board are arranged - the emperor, the Pope, the cities. It seems to us that their threefold enmity was the result of not only human greed.
The participation of cities is what was fundamentally new in the confrontation between the popes and the German emperors. The citizen of Italy felt the vacuum of power and did not fail to take advantage of it: simultaneously with the religious reform, a movement for self-government began, which was to completely change the balance of forces not only in Italy, but throughout Europe in two centuries. It began precisely on the Apennine Peninsula, since here the urban civilization had strong ancient roots and rich traditions of trade relying on its own financial resources. The old Roman centers, which suffered at the hands of the barbarians, were successfully revived, in Italy there were much more townspeople than in other countries of the West.
Urban civilization and its characteristic features in a few words no one can describe to us better than a thoughtful contemporary, the German historian of the middle of the XII century Otto Freisingensky: government management. They love freedom so much that they prefer to obey the consuls rather than the lords in order to avoid abuses of power. And so that they do not abuse their power, they are replaced almost every year. The city forces everyone living in the territory of the diocese to submit to itself, and it is difficult to find a signor or a noble person who would not submit to the authority of the city. The city is not ashamed to knight and admit young men of the lowest origin, even artisans, to rule. Therefore, Italian cities surpass all others in wealth and power. This is facilitated not only by the rationality of their institutions, but also by the long absence of sovereigns who usually remain on the other side of the Alps. "
The economic strength of the Italian cities turned out to be almost decisive in the struggle between the Empire and the Papacy. The city did not at all oppose itself to the traditional feudal world. On the contrary, he did not think of himself outside of him. Even before the commune, this new way of political self-government, finally crystallized, the urban elite realized that the enjoyment of freedoms should be recognized by the emperor or the Pope, better by both. They should have protected these freedoms. By the middle of the 12th century, all the values of the urban civilization of Italy were concentrated in the concept of freedom. The sovereign, who encroached on her, turned from a defender into an enslaver and a tyrant. As a result, the townspeople went over to the side of his enemy and continued the incessant war.
When, in the 1150s, the young German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa appeared on the peninsula with the aim of returning the northern Italian provinces to obedience, a kind of huge chessboard appeared in his eyes, where the squares represented cities with more or less large provinces subordinate to them - contado. Each pursued his own interests, which ran into opposition from the nearest neighbor. Therefore, it was difficult for Mantua to become an ally of Verona, and Bergamo, say, Brescia, etc. Each city looked for an ally in a more distant neighbor with whom it had no territorial disputes. The city tried with all its might to subordinate the districts to its own orders, as a result of this process, called comitatinanza, small states arose. The strongest of them tried to absorb the weakest.
There was no end in sight to the strife in Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia, Romagna, Tuscany. The cruelty that the Italians showed to each other is striking. In 1158, the emperor laid siege to the rebellious Milan, and “no one,” writes the chronicler, “participated in this siege with greater fury than the Cremonians and the Pavians. The besieged, too, did not show more hostility to anyone than to them. There has long been rivalry and strife between Milan and these cities. In Milan, many thousands of their people were killed or suffered in grievous captivity, their lands were plundered and burned. Since they themselves could not properly take revenge on Milan, who surpassed them both in their own strengths and in the number of allies, they decided that the right moment had come to pay off the insults inflicted on them. " The combined German-Italian troops then managed to break proud Milan, its fortifications as the most important symbol of freedom and independence were torn down, and an equally symbolic furrow was drawn along the central square. However, the glorious German knights were not always lucky - the city militias, especially those united under the auspices of the Lombard League, inflicted equally crushing defeats on them, the memory of which remained for centuries.
Cruelty was an indispensable part of the struggle of the Italian medieval parties. The government was cruel, but the townspeople were just as cruel towards it: the "guilty" podesta, consuls, even prelates were beaten, their tongues were torn out, they were blinded, they were driven in shame through the streets. Such attacks did not necessarily lead to regime change, but gave the illusion of temporary release. The authorities responded with torture and stimulated denunciations. The suspect of espionage, conspiracy and connections with the enemy was threatened with expulsion or the death penalty. Normal legal proceedings were not applied in such matters. When the criminals were hiding, the authorities did not shun the services of hired killers. The most common punishment was deprivation of property, and for wealthy families, the demolition of a palazzo. The methodical destruction of towers and palaces was intended not only to erase the memory of individuals, but also of their ancestors. The ominous concept of proscriptions returned (this is how even in the time of Sulla in Rome the proclamation of a certain citizen was called outlaw - his murder was permitted and encouraged, and the property went to the treasury and partly to the murderers themselves), and often they now extended to the children and grandchildren of the convict (along the male line ). So the ruling party uprooted whole family trees from public life.
In addition, the daily stream of violence also emanated from special organized groups, such as extended tribal “militias” (“consortium”), parish “squads” of a certain church, or “contrads” (quarterly “teams”). There were various forms of disobedience: an open refusal to follow the laws of the commune (actually a synonym for "city"), a military attack on the entire hometown by those expelled from it for political reasons, "terrorist attacks" against magistrates and clergy, theft of their property, the creation of secret societies, subversive agitation.
I must say that in this struggle, political predilections changed with the speed of a kaleidoscope. Who are you, Guelph or Ghibelline, is often decided by momentary circumstances. Throughout the thirteenth century, there is hardly one large city where the power has not changed violently several times. What to say about Florence, which changed the laws with extraordinary ease. Everything was decided by practice. The one who seized power formed the government, created laws and monitored their implementation, controlled the courts, etc. Opponents - in prison, in exile, outside the law, but the exiles and their secret allies did not forget the insult and spent their fortunes on a secret or overt struggle. For them, the government of the adversaries had no legal force, at least not greater than their own.
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were not at all organized parties, subordinate to the leadership of their formal leaders. They were a network of independent factions that collaborated with each other up to a certain point under a suitable banner. The Guelphs often turned their weapons against the Pope, and the Ghibellines acted without considering the interests of applicants for the imperial crown. The Gibellines did not deny the Church, and the Guelphs the Empire, but they tried to minimize their real claims to power. The governments of Guelph were often excommunicated. Prelates often traced their origins from aristocratic families with Ghibelline roots - even some popes could be accused of Ghibelline sympathies!

The Guelph and Ghibelline parties were mobile, while maintaining their employees and corporate rules. In exile, they acted as mercenary gangs and political groups, exerting pressure alternately through war and sometimes through diplomacy. Returning home, they became not only a power, but an influential social force (the concept of a party in power did not exist). For example, when in 1267 the Guelphs once again established control over Florence, their captain and consul entered the government. At the same time, their party remained a private organization, which, however, was officially "awarded" the confiscated property of the exiled Ghibellines. With these funds, she began, in fact, the financial enslavement of the city. In March 1288, the commune and popolo owed her 13,000 florins. This allowed the Guelphs to put pressure on their fellow countrymen so that they sanctioned the outbreak of war against the Tuscan Ghibellines (which led to the victory at Campaldino in 1289). In general, the parties played the role of the main censors and guardians of political "faithfulness", ensuring, with varying degrees of success, the loyalty of the townspeople to the Pope or the Emperor, respectively. That's the whole ideology.

The leader of the Pisan ghibellines, Ugolino della Gherardesca, together with his sons, was imprisoned in the castle of Gualandi, where he died of starvation.
Reading medieval prophecies, the historiosophical reasoning of the followers of Joachim of Flores, or the writings of Dante, promising trouble for Italian cities, one gets the impression that there were no right or wrong in that struggle. From the Scottish astrologer Michael Scott, who spoke to Frederick II in 1232 in Bologna, both the rebellious Guelph communes and the cities loyal to the Empire got it. Dante, Count Ugolino della Gerardesca of Pisa, condemned him to the terrible torments of hell for betraying his party, but despite this, under his pen he became almost the most humane image of the entire poem, at least of its first part. The 13th century chronicler Saba Malaspina called both the Guelphs and the Ghibellines as demons, and Jeri of Arezzo called his fellow citizens pagans because they worshiped these party names like idols.
Is it worth looking for a reasonable beginning behind this "idolatry", any real political or cultural convictions? Is it possible to understand at all the nature of the conflict, the roots of which go far into the past of the Italian lands, and the consequences - in the Italy of the New Time, with its political fragmentation, "neogwelphs" and "neohibellines"? Perhaps, in some ways, the struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines is akin to the fights of football tifosi, sometimes quite dangerous and bloody? How can a self-respecting young Italian not root for his native club? How can he be completely "out of the game"? Struggle, conflict, "partisanship", if you like, in the very nature of man, and the Middle Ages in this is very similar to us. Trying to look in the history of the Guelphs and Ghibellines exclusively for the expression of the struggle of classes, estates or "strata" is perhaps not worth it. But at the same time, we must not forget that the modern democratic traditions of the West largely originate from the struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.