THE FRANKISH EMPERORS The Franco-Papal alliance held within itself that ideal of mutu ally supporting papacy and empire which exercised so powerful an influence in mediaeval history. When Charles the Great (Charle magne) deposed his father-in-law Desiderius, the last Lombard king, in 774, and when he was crowned emperor by Leo III. at Rome in Boo, he did but complete and ratify the compact offered to his grandfather, Charles Martel, by Gregory III. Charles took possession of the kingdom of Italy, as limited by Pippin's settle ment. The pope was confirmed in his rectorship of the cities ceded by Aistolf, with the further understanding that in the future he might claim the protectorate of such portions of Italy, external to the kingdom, as he should be able to acquire. The kingdom of Italy, transmitted on his death by Charles the Great, and after wards confirmed to his grandson Lothar by the peace of Verdun in 843, stretched from the Alps to Terracina. The duchy of Benevento remained tributary, but independent. The cities of Gaeta and Naples, Sicily and the so-called Theme of Lombardy in South Apulia and Calabria, still recognized the Byzantine emperor. Venice stood aloof, professing a nominal allegiance to the East.
Internally Charles left the affairs of the Italian kingdom much as he found them, except that he appears to have pursued the policy of breaking up the larger fiefs of the Lombards, substi tuting counts for their dukes, and adding to the privileges of the bishops. We may reckon these measures among the earliest advan tages extended to the cities, which still contained the bulk of the old Roman population. It should also here be noticed that the changes introduced into the holding of the fiefs were chief among the causes why the feudal system took no permanent hold in Italy. Feudalism was not at any time a national institution. The hierarchy of dukes and marquises and counts consisted of foreign soldiers ; and the rapid succession of conquerors, each endeavour ing to weaken the remaining strength of his predecessor, prevented this alien hierarchy from acquiring fixity by permanence of tenure.
The Italians acknowledged eight kings of the house of Charles the Great, ending in Charles the Fat, who was deposed in 888. Af ter them followed ten sovereigns, all more or less alien, the last of whom was Berengar II. who in 961 ceded his rights to Otto the Great. Anarchy and misery are the main features of the long period between the death of Charles the Great and the descent of Otto. Early in the 9th century the Saracens began to occupy Sicily, overran Calabria and Apulia, took Bari and threat ened Rome. In 890 the Greeks established themselves again at
Bari, and ruled the Theme of Lombardy through an officer en titled the Catapan. Early in the loth century the papacy fell into the hands of a noble family, known eventually as the counts of Tusculum, who almost succeeded in rendering the office hereditary, and in uniting the civil and ecclesiastical functions of the city under a single member of their house. During this time the popes abandoned, not only their high duties as chiefs of Christendom, but also their protectorate of Italian liberties; while the invasion of the Magyar barbarians, who overran the north of Italy, reduced its fairest provinces to the condition of a wilderness. The cities exposed to pillage by Huns in the north and Saracens in the south, and ravaged on the coast by Norse pirates, asserted their right to defend themselves. Within the circuit of their ramparts, the bishops already began to exercise authority in rivalry with the counts, to whom since the days of Theodoric, had been entrusted the government of the Italian burghs. Agreeably to feudal cus toms, these nobles retired from the town and built themselves f or tresses on points of vantage in the neighbourhood. Thus the titular king of Italy found himself simultaneously at war with those great vassals, with the turbulent factions of the Roman aris tocracy, with unruly bishops, and with a multitude of minor counts and barons. The last king of the quasi-Italian succession, Berengar II., marquis of Ivrea (951-961), made a vigorous effort to restore the authority of the kingdom. But he stood alone against a multitude, unanimous in their intolerance of discipline. His predecessor in the kingdom, Lothar, had left a young and beautiful widow, Adelheid. Berengar imprisoned her upon the Lake of Como, but she escaped to the castle of Canossa, where the great count of Tuscany espoused her cause, and appealed in her behalf to Otto the Saxon. The king of Germany descended into Italy, and took Adelheid in marriage; and Berengar, in the extremity of his fortunes, had recourse himself to Otto, making a formal cession of the Italian kingdom to the Saxon as his overlord. By this slen der tie the crown of Italy was joined to that of Germany; and the formal right of the elected king of Germany to be considered king of Italy and emperor may be held to have accrued from this epoch.