Page 300 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

kings came from the Spanish house of Aragon. The center of the peninsula remained under the rather shaky control of the papacy. Lack of centralized authority had enabled numerous city-states in northern and cen- tral Italy to remain independent of any political authority.
MANTUA
ilan Venice
assumed control of the Floren- tine government, led the Floren- tines in a series of successful wars against their neighbors, and established Florence as a major territorial state in north- ern Italy. The other major northern Italian state was the maritime republic of Venice, which had grown rich from com- mercial activity in the eastern Mediterranean and northern Europe. Venice remained a sta- ble political entity governed by a small oligarchy of merchant- aristocrats who had become extremely wealthy through their trading activities. Venice’s com- mercial empire brought in enor- mous revenues and gave it the status of an international power. At the end of the fourteenth century, Venice embarked on
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In the course of the four- teenth century, two general ten- dencies can be discerned in Italy:
the replacement of republican governments by tyrants and the expansion of the larger city- states at the expense of the less powerful ones. Nearly all the cities of northern Italy began 0 their existence as free com- munes with republican govern- 0 ments. But in the fourteenth century, intense internal strife
led city-states to resort to tem-
porary expedients, allowing rule by one man with dicta- torial powers. Limited rule, however, soon became long-term despotism, as tyrants proved willing to use force to maintain power. Eventually, the tyrants tried to legitimize their power by purchasing titles from the emperor (still nominally ruler of northern Italy as Holy Roman emperor). In this fashion, the Visconti became the dukes of Milan and the d’Este the dukes of Ferrara.
The other change of great significance was the devel- opment of regional entities as the larger states expanded at the expense of the smaller ones. To fight their battles, city-states came to rely on mercenary soldiers, whose leaders, called condottieri (kahn-duh-TYAY-ree), sold the services of their bands to the highest bidder. These mercenaries wreaked havoc on the countryside, living by blackmail and looting when they were not actively engaged in battles.
By the beginning of the fifteenth century, three major states came to dominate northern Italy. Located in the fertile Po valley, where the chief trade routes from Italian coastal cities to the Alpine passes crossed, Milan was one of the richest city-states in Italy. Politi- cally, it was also one of the most agitated until mem- bers of the Visconti family established themselves as hereditary dukes of Milan and extended their power over all of Lombardy. The republic of Florence domi- nated the region of Tuscany. In the course of the four- teenth century, a small but wealthy merchant oligarchy
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the conquest of a territorial state in northern Italy to protect its food supply and its overland trade routes.
The Decline of the Church
Q FOCUS QUESTION: How and why did the authority and prestige of the papacy decline in the fourteenth century?
The papacy of the Roman Catholic Church reached the height of its power in the thirteenth century. Theories of papal supremacy included a doctrine of “fullness of power” as the spiritual head of Christendom and claims to universal temporal authority over all secular rulers. But papal claims of temporal supremacy were increas- ingly out of step with the growing secular monarchies of Europe and ultimately brought the papacy into a conflict with the territorial states that it was unable to win.
Boniface VIII and the Conflict with the
State
The struggle between the papacy and the secular monarchies began during the pontificate of Pope Boni- face VIII (1294–1303). One major issue appeared to be at stake between the pope and King Philip IV
262 Chapter 11 The Later Middle Ages: Crisis and Disintegration in the Fourteenth Century
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