JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES

IN

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor

History is past Politics and Politics present History.—Freeman

NINTH SERIES

V-VI

The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OFMUNICIPAL UNITY AMONG THE LOMBARD COMMUNES

BY WILLIAM KLAPP WILLIAMS, PH.D.

NEWBERRY LIBRARY, CHICAGO

May, June, 1891

"Est error spretus, quo Langobarda juventus
Errabat, verum loquitur nunc pagina sensum."

RHOTARI: Legum Prologus.

THE COMMUNES OF LOMBARDY FROM THE VI. TO THE X. CENTURY.

PART I.

THE LOMBARD CONQUEST AND ITS RESULTS.

Before tracing the beginnings of renewed municipal life in NorthernItaly, we must consider the conditions of land and people, which firstrendered possible and then fostered the spirit of local independenceof which such beginnings were the natural expression. To do this wemust commence our researches with the first domination of the Lombardsin the country.

In detail the story of the conquest of Northern Italy by the Lombardsunder Alboin, in 568, hardly differs materially from that of theinroads of other barbarian tribes of the north on the fertile plainsof Italy. The causes were the same. Where the distinction is to befound from other such invasions, is in the results of the Lombardoccupation, and in the different methods which the Lombards adopted soas to render their power and their possessions permanent. Let us lookat the character of this invading host, which sweeps like a tide, atonce destroying and revivifying, over the exhausted though stillfertile plains of the Po and the Adige. Are we to call it a movingpeople or an advancing army? Are we to call its leaders (duces, fromducere to lead), heads of clans and families, or captains andgenerals? Finally, is the land to be invaded, or is the land to besettled? To all these questions the only answer is to be found in theconception of the absolute union of both the kinds of functionsdescribed. A people is moving from a home whose borders have provedtoo narrow for its increasing numbers; an army is conquering a newhome, where plenty will take the place of want, and luxury ofprivation. It is not an army marching at the command of a stronglycentralized power to conquer a rich neighbor, and force a defeatedenemy to pay it service or tribute. It is a body which, when it hasconquered as an army, will occupy as a people; when it is establishedas a people, will still remain an army. The sword was not turned intothe ploughshare; but the power to wield the sword had given the rightto till the land, and soon the power to hold the land was to give theright to wear the sword. It was the conquest of a highly civilizedagricultural people—whose very civilization had reduced them to astage of moral weakness which rendered them totally unfit to defendthemselves—by a semi-barbarous people, agricultural also, but rude,uncivilized, independent, owning no rulers but their family ormilitary chiefs.

The conquerors took

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