Villani's Chronicle. Giovanni Villani

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СКАЧАТЬ href="#u3655345e-7290-4455-89d9-1713466e99dd">Book IV., § 19. By way of putting the reader on his guard, we will go into this exceptionally bad, but by no means solitary, instance of Villani's inaccuracies.

      Tancred, of the castle of Hauteville (near Coutances, in Normandy), had twelve sons, ten of whom sought their fortunes in southern Italy and Sicily. Four of these were successively Counts of Apulia, the last of the four being Robert Guiscard. He was followed by his son Roger, and his grandson William, who died childless. Another of the sons of Tancred was Roger, who became Count of Sicily. He was succeeded by his son Roger II., who possessed himself of the Apulian domains of his relative William, on the decease of the latter. Roger now had himself proclaimed King of Sicily by the anti-pope Anaclete, and united Sicily and Naples under his sway. He was followed by his son William (the Bad), and his grandson William (the Good), on whose death, without issue, Henry VI., who married Roger's daughter Constance, claimed the succession in the right of his wife. (L'Art de Vérifier les Dates.)

      The most important of these relations may be set forth thus:

	Tancred of Hauteville
Robert Guiscard Count of Apulia		Roger I. Count of Sicily
Roger		Roger II. King of Sicily
William
	William the Bad		Constance = Henry VI.
	William the Good

      Let the reader construct the family tree from the data in Villani, and compare it with the one given above. He will find that Villani, to begin with, makes Robert Guiscard a younger son of the Duke of Normandy, then makes his younger brother, Roger I., into his son (occasionally confounding him with Roger II.); and, finally, ignores William the Bad, and makes William the Good the brother of Constance. His details as to the pretender Tancred are equally inaccurate. These must suffice as specimens; but they are specimens not only of a special class of mistake, but of a style of work against which the reader must be constantly on his guard if he intends to make use of any detailed dates or relations, or even if he wishes to make sure that the Pope or other actor named in any connection is really the right one.

      So, too, even well within historical times, Villani is prone to the epic simplification of events. His account of the negociations of Farinata with Manfred, and of the battle of Montaperti for instance, represents the Florentine legend or tradition rather than the history of the events. These events are conceived with the vividness, simplicity and picturesque preponderance of personality which make them easy to see, but impossible to reconstruct in a rationally convincing form.

      To enter into further detail under this head would be to transgress the limits we have set ourselves.

§ 5. The Rationale of the Revolutions of Florence.[2]

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      The settled conviction of both Villani and Dante that a difference of race underlay the civil wars of Florence, rests upon a truth obscurely though powerfully felt by them.

      We have seen that the legend of Fiesole and Florence, upon which they rest their case, is without historical foundation; but the conflict of races was there none the less. And as it is here that modern historians find the key to the history of Florence, our readers will probably be glad to have set before them a brief account of the general conceptions in the light of which modern scholars would have us read the naive and ingenuous records of Villani.

      The numerous Teutonic invasions and incursions which had swept over northern and central Italy, from Odoacer to Charlemagne, had established a powerful territorial nobility. They constituted a dominating class, military in their habits, accustomed to the exercise and the abuse of the simpler functions of government, accepting certain feudal traditions, but owning no practical allegiance to any power that was not in a position instantly to enforce it. Their effective organization was based on the clan system, and the informal family council was omnipotent within the limits of the clan. They were without capacity or desire for any large and enduring social organization. Their combinations were temporary, and for military purposes; and internecine family feuds were a permanent factor in their lives. Their laws were based on the "Barbarian" codes, but the influence of Roman law was increasingly felt by them.

      In the cities it is probable that the old municipal organization had never wholly died out, though it had no formal recognition. The citizens were sometimes allowed to live "under their own law," and sometimes not; but the tradition of the Roman law was never lost. Nominally the cities were under the jurisdiction of some territorial magnate, or a nominee of the Emperor, but practically they enjoyed various degrees of independence. Their effective organization would depend upon their special circumstances, but in such a case as that of Florence would be based on the trade guilds.

      In Florence a number of the Teutonic nobles had settled in the city; but it owed its importance to its trade. The city-dwelling nobles kept up their clan life, and fortified their houses; but in other respects they had become partially assimilated in feeling, and even in habits and occupations, to the mercantile community in which they lived. They filled the posts of military and civil administration, and were conscious of a strong unity of interest with the people.

      Under the vigorous and beneficent rule in Tuscany of the great Countess Matilda (1076-1115) Florence was able quietly to consolidate and extend her power without raising any thorny questions of formal jurisdiction. But on the death of Matilda, when the Church and the Empire equally claimed the succession and were equally unable efficiently to assert their claims, it was inevitable that an attempt should be made to establish the de facto supremacy of Florence over Fiesole and the whole outlying district upon a firmer and more formal basis. It was equally inevitable that the attempt should be resisted.

      Within Florence, as we have seen, there was a heterogeneous, but as yet fairly united citizenship. The germs of organization consisted on the side of the nobles in the clans and the Tower-clubs, and on the side of the people in the Trade-guilds. The Tower-clubs were associations each of which possessed a fortified tower in the city, which was maintained at the common expense of the associates, and with which their houses communicated. Of the Trade-guilds we shall speak briefly hereafter.

      In the surrounding country the territorial nobility watched the growing power and prosperity of Florence with jealousy, stoutly resisted her claims to jurisdiction over them and their demesnes, and made use of their command of the great commercial highways to exact regular or irregular tolls, even when they did not frankly plunder the merchants.

      Obviously two struggles must result from this situation. The city as a whole was vitally concerned in clearing the commercial routes and rendering the territorial nobility harmless; but within the city two parties, who may almost be regarded as two nations, contended for the mastery.

      With respect to the collective struggle of Florence against her foes, which entered on its active phase early in the twelfth century, on the death of Matilda in 1115, it may be said in brief that it was carried on with a vigour and success, subject only to brief and few reverses, during the whole period with which we are concerned. But this very success in external enterprises emphasized and embittered the internal factions. These had been serious from the first. The Uberti and other ruling families resisted the growing influence of the people; and the vicissitudes of the struggle may be traced at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries in the alternation of the various forms of the supreme magistracy. But it was part of the policy of the victorious Florentines to compel the nobles they had reduced to submission to live СКАЧАТЬ