Lombard League

Lombard League, the name given in general to any league of the cities of Lombardy, but applied especially to the league founded in 1167, which brought about the defeat of the emperor Frederick I. at Legnano, and the consequent destruction of his plans for obtaining complete authority over Italy.

Lacking often the protection of a strong ruler, the Lombard cities had been accustomed to act together for mutual defence, and in 1093 Milan, Lodi, Piacenza and Cremona formed an alliance against the emperor Henry IV., in favour of his rebellious son Conrad. The early years of the reign of Frederick I. were largely spent in attacks on the privileges of the cities of Lombardy. This led to a coalition, formed in March 1167, between the cities of Cremona, Mantua, Bergamo and Brescia to confine Frederick to the rights which the emperors had enjoyed for the past hundred years. This league or concordia was soon joined by other cities, among which were Milan, Parma, Padua, Verona, Piacenza and Bologna, and the allies began to build a fortress near the confluence of the Tanaro and the Bormida, which, in honour of Pope Alexander III., was called Alessandria. During the absence of Frederick from Italy from 1168 to 1174, the relations between the pope and the league became closer, and Alexander became the leader of the alliance. Meetings of the league were held in 1172 and 1173 to strengthen the bond, and to concert measures against the emperor, the penalties of the church being invoked to prevent defection. The decisive struggle began when Frederick attacked Alessandria in 1174. The fortress was bravely defended, and the siege was raised on the approach of succour from the allied cities. Negotiations for peace failed, and the emperor, having marched against Milan, suffered a severe defeat at Legnano on the 29th of May 1176. Subsequently Pope Alexander was detached from his allies, and made peace with Frederick, after which a truce for six years was arranged between the emperor and the league. Further negotiations ripened into the peace of Constance signed on the 25th of June 1183, which granted almost all the demands of the cities, and left only a shadowy authority to the emperor (see Italy).

In 1226, when the emperor Frederick II. avowed his intention of restoring the imperial authority in Italy, the league was renewed, and at once fifteen cities, including Milan and Verona, were placed under the ban. Frederick, however, was not in a position to fight, and the mediation of Pope Honorius III. was successful in restoring peace. In 1231 the hostile intentions of the emperor once more stirred the cities into activity. They held a meeting at Bologna and raised an army, but as in 1226, the matter ended in mutual fulminations and defiances. A more serious conflict arose in 1234. The great question at issue, the nature and extent of the imperial authority over the Lombard cities, was still unsettled when Frederick’s rebellious son, the German king Henry VII., allied himself with them. Having crushed his son and rejected the proffered mediation of Pope Gregory IX., the emperor declared war on the Lombards in 1236; he inflicted a serious defeat upon their forces at Cortenuova in November 1237 and met with other successes, but in 1238 he was beaten back from before Brescia. In 1239 Pope Gregory joined the cities and the struggle widened out into the larger one of the Empire and the Papacy. This was still proceeding when Frederick died in December 1250 and it was only ended by the overthrow of the Hohenstaufen and the complete destruction of the imperial authority in Italy.