Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
Henry crossed to Normandy in the spring of 1165, where an embassy came to him from the Emperor which resulted in the marriage of his daughter Matilda with Henry the Lion, of the house of Guelf. Two clerks who returned with this embassy to Germany seem to have involved the king in some embarrassment by promises of some kind to support the emperor against the pope.
Guelf still meant constitutional autonomy, meant the burgher as against the noble, meant industry as opposed to feudal lordship. Ghibelline meant the rule of the few over the many, meant tyranny, meant the interest of the noble as against the merchant and the citizen.
It is enough to point out here that, as Ezzelino da Romano introduced despotism in its worst form as a party leader of the Ghibellines, so Charles of Anjou became a typical tyrant in the Guelf interest. He was recognized as chief of the Guelf party by the Florentines, and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was conferred upon him as the price of his dictatorship.
Dante's father belonged to the Guelf party and the boy was brought up with the idea that he must always serve the Guelfs, and support them in all their quarrels. The Guelfs, moreover, were high in the affairs of Florence and had overcome their opponents there. And for this reason those who belonged to the Guelf cause had the chance to rise in the affairs of the city.
And did the Squire Don, or the great Sir Lewis, that lived at that time, or the Germains, say a word against us for it? Mind your own business, my lads: law is not to be had for nothing; and we, you may be sure, shall have to pay the whole bill." Nevertheless the people of St George's were resolved on law. They cried out most lustily, "Squire Guelf for ever! Sweet William for ever!
Innocent IV., who was chiefly guilty of these proceedings, was engaged in a long struggle with Frederick II. of Germany, respecting the kingdom of the two Sicilies, and the Guelf and Ghibelline struggle forever raging in Italy, and it was this apparently remote quarrel which was in reality the cause of the oppression and simony that so cruelly affected England.
His father Paolo, or Pùho as he was commonly called, was poor and exiled from the city, together with the rest of the Guelf nobles, by the Visconti. Being a man of daring spirit, and little inclined to languish in a foreign state as the dependent on some patron, Pùho formed the bold design of seizing the Castle of Trezzo.
He founded the University of Naples and encouraged the study of medicine; he had the Greek of Aristotle translated, and himself set the fashion in verse-making, which was soon to be the pastime of every court in Italy. The Pope was more successful in a contest waged with tongues than he had proved on battle-fields, which were strewn with bodies of both Guelf and Ghibelline factions.
A city does not pronounce itself either Guelf or Ghibelline till half the burghers have been exiled. The victorious party organizes the government in its own interest, establishes itself in a Palazzo apart from the Commune, where it develops its machinery at home and abroad, and strengthens its finance by forced contributions and confiscations.
Frederick, having established his power in Germany, attempted to assert it in Italy as well; and so the strife passed over the Alps and became that of Ghibelline against Guelf, in Italian phrase, of emperor against pope, of monarchy against democracy.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking