New conflicts with the papacy broke out under succeeding rulers. Frederick Barbarossa warred for years with the semi-independent Lombard cities which were upheld by Pope Alexander III. Defeated at Legnano (1176) he was obliged to conclude the Peace of Venice with the Pope (1177), and that of Constance (1183) with the Lombard cities. • See PEACE TREATIES.
The fact that Barbarossa's son, Henry VI, acquired Sicily by marriage, made the enmity of the popes and the emperors implacable. The papal possessions seemed to be held in a vise. It was this jealousy and fear that led to the papal determination • to destroy the house of Hohenstaufen, root and branch. Other pretexts were never wanting. Frederick II was placed under the papal ban for delaying to accomplish his crusading vow and again for starting when forbidden. Crusades were preached against the emperor himself, who retaliated by capturing a whole shipload of prelates on their way to a council at Rome. It was a Titan struggle, the Sicilian kingdom being always the real bone of contention. The papacy conquered, with the aid of Charles of Anjou, who was promised the rule over Sicily. The last scion of the Hohen staufen line, after losing the battle of Taglia cozzo (1268), was beheaded in the market-place at Naples.
Meanwhile the continued absence of the law ful rulers from Germany, and also the gifts of land and of privileges with which they had tried to win the support of the German nobles in the Italian campaigns, had led to the rise of many small and almost independent states. Frederick Barbarossa had still been strong enough to put down h's most powerful vassal, Henry the Lion, and divide up his lands. Frederick II's death (1250) brought anarchy; and when, after an in terregnum, Rudolph of Hapsburg was made king, it was practically a confederation over which he ruled.
Yet, strange to say,•tkte age of the stauf ens marks a great advance in civilization and well-being. It was the age of the crusades (q.v.) and of chivalry (q.v.), an age that marked an era in commerce, in learning and literature and in luxurious living. It is from this time that some of the great cathedrals date. Germany's boundaries, 'too, were .pushed to the east and north by colonization and occasionally by war.
The 14th and 15th century kings left little impression on the history of Germany. They were men of no great force and they advocated no great principle. Henry VII and Louis of Bavaria renewed the old struggles in Italy but with no lasting results. The quarrel of Louis with Pope John XXII, indeed, is memorable for the literary productions that it called forth. The success of the Defeasor Paris of Marsilius of Padua was phenomenal. Never had the papacy been so assailed.
Charles IV was a man of no high aims, and his reign is chiefly remarkable for his promulga tion of the so-called Golden Bull (q.v.) in favor of the seven electors. The earlier kings of Ger many had been chosen by the whole body of the princes. At the election of Rudolph of Haps burg, however, seven—the three archbishops (Mainz, Treves and Cologne) and the dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, the Margrave of Branden burg and the Count Palatine— had been espe cially prominent. Bavaria's vote, indeed, was adjudged later to Bohemia. This electoral col lege became very powerful, exacting promises from the successful candidates and even depos ing an emperor. The Golden Bull (1356) fixed the elaborate ceremonial of elections and the functions, rights and prerogatives of each of the seven electors. They were accorded almost sovereign rights.
Equally remarkable with the growth of the duchies and electorates was the development of the free towns. We find them banding to gether into commercial leagues and exercising real political power, such as setting their own king on the throne of Denmark. The Hanse atic League had its own fleet and its settlements in foreign lands. It enjoyed monopolies of trade and built great halls or warehouses that excite admiration to-day.
Another important organization was the Teutonic Order, a band of knights who had un dertaken the conversion of wild Prussian tribes and had ended by building up a great state with the Marienburg for its centre. The order be came rich and powerful and was visited by the greatest princes. It degenerated at last and be came involved in a long war with Poland. By the Peace of Thorn (1466) the part of its ter ritory known as West Prussia passed into Polish hands, while even the portion that was left became a Polish dependency.